(LIBRARY! 
UNIVERSITY  OR 
CALIFORNIA          I 
„  SAN  DIEGO  -\ 


GREEK   STUDIES 


GREEK     STUDIES 


A   SERIES  OF   ESSAYS 


BY 

WALTER  \  PA' 

LATE  FELLOW  OF   BRASENOSE  COLLEGE 


PREPARED  FOR   THE  PRESS 
BY 

CHARLES    L.    SHADWELL 

FELLOW  OF  ORIEL  COLLEGE 


Nefo 
THE  MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO..  LTD. 
I897 

All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1894, 
BY  MACMILLAN  AND  CO. 


Set  up  and  electrotyped  December,  1894.     Reprinted 
September,  1895;  January,  1897. 


Nortooot 
J.  6.  Gushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 


THE  present  volume  consists  of  a  collection  of  essays 
by  the  late  Mr.  Pater,  all  of  which  have  already  been 
given  to  the  public  in  various  Magazines;  and  it  is 
owing  to  the  kindness  of  the  several  proprietors  of 
those  Magazines  that  they  can  now  be  brought 
together  in  a  collected  shape.  It  will,  it  is  believed, 
be  felt,  that  their  value  is  considerably  enhanced  by 
their  appearance  in  a  single  volume,  where  they  can 
throw  light  upon  one  another,  and  exhibit  by  their 
connexion  a  more  complete  view  of  the  scope  and 
purpose  of  Mr.  Pater  in  dealing  with  the  art  and 
literature  of  the  ancient  world. 

The  essays  fall  into  two  distinct  groups,  one  dealing 
with  the  subjects  of  Greek  mythology  and  Greek 
poetry,  the  other  with  the  history  of  Greek  sculpture 
and  Greek  architecture.  But  these  two  groups  are 
not  wholly  distinct ;  they  mutually  illustrate  one 
v 


vi  PREFACE 

another,  and  serve  to  enforce  Mr.  Pater's  conception 
of  the  essential  unity,  in  all  its  many-sidedness,  of 
the  Greek  character.  The  god  understood  as  the 
"  spiritual  form  "  of  the  things  of  nature  is  not  only  the 
key-note  of  the  "  Study  of  Dionysus l "  and  "  The  Myth 
of  Demeter  and  Persephone2",  but  reappears  as  con- 
tributing to  the  interpretation  of  the  growth  of  Greek 
sculpture3."  Thus,  though  in  the  bibliography  of 
his  writings,  the  two  groups  are  separated  by  a  con- 
siderable interval,  there  is  no  change  of  view ;  he  had 
already  reached  the  centre  of  the  problem,  and,  the 
secret  once  gained,  his  mode  of  treatment  of  the  dif- 
ferent aspects  of  Greek  life  and  thought  is  permanent 
and  consistent. 

The  essay  on  "The  Myth  of  Demeter  and  Per- 
sephone "  was  originally  prepared  as  two  lectures,  for 
delivery,  in  1875,  at  tne  Birmingham  and  Midland 
Institute.  These  lectures  were  published  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  in  Jan.  and  Feb.  1876.  The 
"  Study  of  Dionysus  "  appeared  in  the  same  Review 
in  Dec.  1876.  "The  Bacchanals  of  Euripides"  must 
have  been  written  about  the  same  time,  as  a  sequel 
to  the  "  Study  of  Dionysus  ";  for,  in  1878,  Mr.  Pater 
revised  the  four  essays,  with  the  intention,  apparently, 

1  See  p.  28.  2  See  p.  100. 

8  See  pp.  231,  269. 


PREFACE  vii 

of  publishing  them  collectively  in  a  volume,  an  inten- 
tion afterwards  abandoned.  The  text  now  printed 
has,  except  that  of  "  The  Bacchanals  ",  been  taken  from 
proofs  then  set  up,  further  corrected  in  manuscript. 
"  The  Bacchanals  ",  written  long  before,  was  not  pub- 
lished until  1889,  when  it  appeared  in  Macmillaris 
Magazine  for  May.  It  was  reprinted,  without  altera- 
tion, prefixed  to  Dr.  Tyrrell's  edition  of  the  Bacchae. 
"  Hippolytus  Veiled  "  first  appeared  in  August  1889, 
in  Macmillaris  Magazine.  It  was  afterwards  re- 
written, but  with  only  a  few  substantial  alterations, 
in  Mr.  Pater's  own  hand,  with  a  view,  probably,  of 
republishing  it  with  other  essays.  This  last  revise 
has  been  followed  in  the  text  now  printed. 

The  papers  on  Greek  sculpture J  are  all  that  remain 
of  a  series  which,  if  Mr.  Pater  had  lived,  would, 
probably,  have  grown  into  a  still  more  important 
work.  Such  a  work  would  have  included  one  or 
more  essays  on  Pheidias  and  the  Parthenon,  of  which 
only  a  fragment,  though  an  important  fragment,  can 
be  found  amongst  his  papers ;  and  it  was  to  have 

1  "  The  Beginnings  of  Greek  Sculpture  "  was  published  in  the 
Fortnightly  Review,  Feb.  and  March,  1880;  "The  Marbles 
of  ^Egina "  in  the  same  Review  in  April.  "  The  Age  of 
Athletic  Prizemen "  was  published  in  the  Contemporary 
Review  in  February  of  the  present  year. 


viii  PREFACE 

been  prefaced  by  an  Introduction  to  Greek  Studies, 
only  a  page  or  two  of  which  was  ever  written. 

This  is  not  the  place  to  speak  of  Mr.  Pater's  private 
virtues,  the  personal  charm  of  his  character,  the 
brightness  of  his  talk,  the  warmth  of  his  friendship, 
the  devotion  of  his  family  life.  But  a  few  words  may 
be  permitted  on  the  value  of  the  work  by  which  he 
will  be  known  to  those  who  never  saw  him. 

Persons  only  superficially  acquainted,  or  by  hearsay, 
with  his  writings,  are  apt  to  sum  up  his  merits  as 
a  writer  by  saying  that  he  was  a  master,  or  a  con- 
summate master  of  style ;  but  those  who  have  really 
studied  what  he  wrote  do  not  need  to  be  told  that  his 
distinction  does  not  lie  in  his  literary  grace  alone,  his 
fastidious  choice  of  language,  his  power  of  word- 
painting,  but  in  the  depth  and  seriousness  of  his 
studies.  That  the  amount  he  has  produced,  in  a 
literary  life  of  thirty  years,  is  not  greater,  is  one 
proof  among  many  of  the  spirit  in  which  he  worked. 
His  genius  was  "  an  infinite  capacity  for  taking  pains  ". 
That  delicacy  of  insight,  that  gift  of  penetrating  into 
the  heart  of  things,  that  subtleness  of  interpretation, 
which  with  him  seems  an  instinct,  is  the  outcome  of 
hard,  patient,  conscientious  study.  If  he  had  chosen, 
he  might,  without  difficulty,  have  produced  a  far 
greater  body  of  work  of  less  value ;  and  from  a 


PREFACE  ix 

worldly  point  of  view,  he  would  have  been  wise. 
Such  was  not  his  understanding  of  the  use  of  his 
talents.  Cut  multum  datum  est,  multum  quaeretur  ab 
eo.  Those  who  wish  to  understand  the  spirit  in 
which  he  worked,  will  find  it  in  this  volume. 

C.  L.  S. 
Oct.  1894. 


CONTENTS 


PACK 

A   STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS :     THE    SPIRITUAL    FORM    OF 

FIRE  AND   DEW I 

THE  BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES        ....  49 
THE  MYTH   OF  DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE. 

I '.        .           .           ....  80 

II.  . .115 

HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED:    A   STUDY   FROM   EURIPIDES      .  157 
THE  BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE. 

I.    THE   HEROIC   AGE   OF   GREEK  ART           .           .  195 

II.    THE  AGE  OF   GRAVEN   IMAGES        .         .  .           .  236 

THE   MARBLES   OF   .EGINA            .           .           .           .           .  266 
THE  AGE  OF    ATHLETIC    PRIZEMEN :    A   CHAPTER   IN 

GREEK   ART  286 


A   STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS 


THE   SPIRITUAL  FORM  OF  FIRE  AND   DEW 

WRITERS  on  mythology  speak  habitually  of  the 
religion  of  the  Greeks.  In  this  speaking,  they  are 
really  using  a  misleading  expression,  and  should  speak 
rather  of  religions  ;  each  race  and  class  of  Greeks  — 
the  Dorians,  the  people  of  the  coast,  the  fishers  — 
having  had  a  religion  of  its  own,  conceived  of  the 
objects  that  came  nearest  to  it  and  were  most  in  its 
thoughts,  and  the  resulting  usages  and  ideas  never 
having  come  to  have  a  precisely  harmonised  system, 
after  the  analogy  of  some  other  religions.  The  religion 
of  Dionysus  is  the  religion  of  people  who  pass  their 
lives  among  the  vines.  As  the  religion  of  Demeter 
carries  us  back  to  the  cornfields  and  farmsteads  of 
Greece,  and  places  us,  in  fancy,  among  a  primitive 
race,  in  the  furrow  and  beside  the  granary ;  so  the 
religion  of  Dionysus  carries  us  back  to  its  vineyards, 
B  1 


2  A   STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS 

and  is  a  monument  of  the  ways  and  thoughts  of 
people  whose  days  go  by  beside  the  winepress,  and 
under  the  green  and  purple  shadows,  and  whose  ma- 
terial happiness  depends  on  the  crop  of  grapes.  For 
them  the  thought  of  Dionysus  and  his  circle,  a  little 
Olympus  outside  the  greater,  covered  the  whole  of 
life,  and  was  a  complete  religion,  a  sacred  representa- 
tion or  interpretation  of  the  whole  human  experience, 
modified  by  the  special  limitations,  the  special  privi- 
leges of  insight  or  suggestion,  incident  to  their  peculiar 
mode  of  existence. 

Now,  if  the  reader  wishes  to  understand  what  the 
scope  of  the  religion  of  Dionysus  was  to  the  Greeks 
who  lived  in  it,  all  it  represented  to  them  by  way  of 
one  clearly  conceived  yet  complex  symbol,  let  him 
reflect  what  the  loss  would  be  if  all  the  effect  and  ex- 
pression drawn  from  the  imagery  of  the  vine  and  the 
cup  fell  out  of  the  whole  body  of  existing  poetry ;  how 
many  fascinating  trains  of  reflexion,  what  colour  and 
substance  would  therewith  have  been  deducted  from  it, 
filled  as  it  is,  apart  from  the  more  aweful  associations 
of  the  Christian  ritual,  apart  from  Galahad's  cup,  with 
all  the  various  symbolism  of  the  fruit  of  the  vine. 
That  supposed  loss  is  but  an  imperfect  measure  of  all 
that  the  name  of  Dionysus  recalled  to  the  Greek  mind, 
under  a  single  imaginable  form,  an  outward  body  of 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  3 

flesh  presented  to  the  senses,  and  comprehending,  as 
its  animating  soul,  a  whole  world  of  thoughts,  surmises, 
greater  and  less  experiences. 

The  student  of  the  comparative  science  of  religions 
finds  in  the  religion  of  Dionysus  one  of  many  modes 
of  that  primitive  tree -worship  which,  growing  out  of 
some  universal  instinctive  belief  that  trees  and  flowers 
are  indeed  habitations  of  living  spirits,  is  found  almost 
everywhere  in  the  earlier  stages  of  civilisation,  en- 
shrined in  legend  or  custom,  often  graceful  enough,  as 
if  the  delicate  beauty  of  the  object  of  worship  had 
effectually  taken  hold  on  the  fancy  of  the  worshipper. 
Shelley's  Sensitive  Plant  shows  in  what  mists  of  poetical 
reverie  such  feeling  may  still  float  about  a  mind  full 
of  modern  lights,  the  feeling  we  too  have  of  a  life  in  the 
green  world,  always  ready  to  assert  its  claim  over  our 
sympathetic  fancies.  Who  has  not  at  moments  felt 
the  scruple,  which  is  with  us  always  regarding  animal 
life,  following  the  signs  of  animation  further  still,  till 
one  almost  hesitates  to  pluck  out  the  little  soul  of 
flower  or  leaf? 

And  in  so  graceful  a  faith  the  Greeks  had  their 
share ;  what  was  crude  and  inane  in  it  becoming,  in 
the  atmosphere  of  their  energetic,  imaginative  intel- 
ligence, refined  and  humanised.  The  oak-grove  of 
Dodona,  the  seat  of  their  most  venerable  oracle,  did 


4  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

but  perpetuate  the  fancy  that  the  sounds  of  the  wind 
in  the  trees  may  be,  for  certain  prepared  and  chosen 
ears,  intelligible  voices ;  they  could  believe  in  the 
transmigration  of  souls  into  mulberry  and  laurel,  mint 
and  hyacinth ;  and  the  dainty  Metamorphoses  of  Ovid 
are  but  a  fossilised  form  of  one  morsel  here  and  there, 
from  a  whole  world  of  transformation,  with  which  their 
nimble  fancy  was  perpetually  playing.  "Together 
with  them,"  says  the  Homeric  hymn  to  Aphrodite,  of 
the  Hamadryads,  the  nymphs  which  animate  the 
forest  trees,  "  with  them,  at  the  moment  of  their  birth, 
grew  up  out  of  the  soil,  oak-tree  or  pine,  fair,  flourish- 
ing among  the  mountains.  And  when  at  last  the  ap- 
pointed hour  of  their  death  has  come,  first  of  all,  those 
fair  trees  are  dried  up ;  the  bark  perishes  from  around 
them,  and  the  branches  fall  away ;  and  therewith  the 
soul  of  them  deserts  the  light  of  the  sun." 

These  then  are  the  nurses  of  the  vine,  bracing  it 
with  interchange  of  sun  and  shade.  They  bathe,  they 
dance,  they  sing  songs  of  enchantment,  so  that  those 
who  seem  oddly  in  love  with  nature,  and  strange 
among  their  fellows,  are  still  said  to  be  nympholepti ; 
above  all,  they  are  weavers  or  spinsters,  spinning  or 
weaving  with  airiest  fingers,  and  subtlest,  many-coloured 
threads,  the  foliage  of  the  trees,  the  petals  of  flowers, 
the  skins  of  the  fruit,  the  long  thin  stalks  on  which 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  5 

the  poplar  leaves  are  set  so  lightly  that  Homer  com- 
pares to  them,  in  their  constant  motion,  the  maids  who 
sit  spinning  in  the  house  of  Alcinous.  The  nymphs 
of  Naxos,  where  the  grape-skin  is  darkest,  weave  for 
him  a  purple  robe.  Only,  the  ivy  is  never  transformed, 
is  visible  as  natural  ivy  to  the  last,  pressing  the  dark 
outline  of  its  leaves  close  upon  the  firm,  white,  quite 
human  flesh  of  the  god's  forehead. 

In  its  earliest  form,  then,  the  religion  of  Dionysus 
presents  us  with  the  most  graceful  phase  of  this  grace- 
ful worship,  occupying  a  place  between  the  ruder 
fancies  of  half-civilised  people  concerning  life  in  flower 
or  tree,  and  the  dreamy  after-fancies  of  the  poet  of 
the  Sensitive  Plant.  He  is  the  soul  of  the  individual 
vine,  first;  the  young  vine  at  the  house-door  of  the 
newly  married,  for  instance,  as  the  vine-grower  stoops 
over  it,  coaxing  and  nursing  it,  like  a  pet  animal  or  a 
little  child ;  afterwards,  the  soul  of  the  whole  species, 
the  spirit  of  fire  and  dew,  alive  and  leaping  in  a 
thousand  vines,  as  the  higher  intelligence,  brooding 
more  deeply  over  things,  pursues,  in  thought,  the 
generation  of  sweetness  and  strength  in  the  veins  of 
the  tree,  the  transformation  of  water  into  wine,  little 
by  little ;  noting  all  the  influences  upon  it  of  the 
heaven  above  and  the  earth  beneath ;  and  shadowing 
forth,  in  each  pause  of  the  process,  an  intervening 


6  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

person  —  what  is  to  us  but  the  secret  chemistry  of 
nature  being  to  them  the  mediation  of  living  spirits. 
So  they  passed  on  to  think  of  Dionysus  (naming  him 
at  last  from  the  brightness  of  the  sky  and  the  moisture 
of  the  earth)  not  merely  as  the  soul  of  the  vine,  but 
of  all  that  life  in  flowing  things  of  which  the  vine  is 
the  symbol,  because  its  most  emphatic  example.  At 
Delos  he  bears  a  son,  from  whom  in  turn  spring  the 
three  mysterious  sisters  QEno,  Spermo,  and  Elais,  who, 
dwelling  in  the  island,  exercise  respectively  the  gifts 
of  turning  all  things  at  will  into  oil,  and  corn,  and 
wine.  In  the  JBaccha  of  Euripides,  he  gives  his 
followers,  by  miracle,  honey  and  milk,  and  the  water 
gushes  for  them  from  the  smitten  rock.  He  comes 
at  last  to  have  a  scope  equal  to  that  of  Demeter,  a 
realm  as  wide  and  mysterious  as  hers ;  the  whole 
productive  power  of  the  earth  is  in  him,  and  the 
explanation  of  its  annual  change.  As  some  embody 
their  intuitions  of  that  power  in  corn,  so  others  in 
wine.  He  is  the  dispenser  of  the  earth's  hidden 
wealth,  giver  of  riches  through  the  vine,  as  Demeter 
through  the  grain.  And  as  Demeter  sends  the  airy, 
dainty-wheeled  and  dainty-winged  spirit  of  Triptole- 
mus  to  bear  her  gifts  abroad  on  all  winds,  so  Dionysus 
goes  on  his  eastern  journey,  with  its  many  intricate  ad- 
ventures, on  which  he  carries  his  gifts  to  every  people. 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  7 

A  little  Olympus  outside  the  greater,  I  said,  of 
Dionysus  and  his  companions ;  he  is  the  centre  of 
a  cycle,  the  hierarchy  of  the  creatures  of  water  and 
sunlight  in  many  degrees;  and  that  fantastic  system 
of  tree-worship  places  round  him,  not  the  fondly 
whispering  spirits  of  the  more  graceful  inhabitants  or 
woodland  only,  the  nymphs  of  the  poplar  and  the 
pine,  but  the  whole  satyr  circle,  intervening  between 
the  headship  of  the  vine  and  the  mere  earth,  the 
grosser,  less  human  spirits,  incorporate  and  made 
visible,  of  the  more  coarse  and  sluggish  sorts  of  vege- 
table strength,  the  fig,  the  reed,  the  ineradicable  weed- 
things  which  will  attach  themselves,  climbing  about 
the  vine-poles,  or  seeking  the  sun  between  the  hot 
stones.  For  as  Dionysus,  the  spiritual  form  of  the 
vine,  is  of  the  highest  human  type,  so  the  fig-tree 
and  the  reed  have  animal  souls,  mistakeable  in  the 
thoughts  of  a  later,  imperfectly  remembering  age, 
for  mere  abstractions  of  animal  nature ;  Snubnose, 
and  Sweetwine,  and  Silenus,  the  oldest  of  them  all,  so 
old  that  he  has  come  to  have  the  gift  of  prophecy. 

Quite  different  from  them  in  origin  and  intent,  but 
confused  with  them  in  form,  are  those  other  com- 
panions of  Dionysus,  Pan  and  his  children.  Home- 
spun dream  of  simple  people,  and  like  them  in  the 
uneventful  tenour  of  his  existence,  he  has  almost  no 


8  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

story ;  he  is  but  a  presence ;  the  spiritual  form  of 
Arcadia,  and  the  ways  of  human  life  there ;  the  re- 
flexion, in  sacred  image  or  ideal,  of  its  flocks,  and 
orchards,  and  wild  honey ;  the  dangers  of  its  hunters ; 
its  weariness  in  noonday  heat ;  its  children,  agile  as 
the  goats  they  tend,  who  run,  in  their  picturesque 
rags,  across  the  solitary  wanderer's  path,  to  startle 
him,  in  the  unfamiliar  upper  places ;  its  one  adorn- 
ment and  solace  being  the  dance  to  the  homely  shep- 
herd's pipe,  cut  by  Pan  first  from  the  sedges  of  the 
brook  Molpeia. 

Breathing  of  remote  nature,  the  sense  of  which  is 
so  profound  in  the  Homeric  hymn  to  Pan,  the  pines, 
the  foldings  of  the  hills,  the  leaping  streams,  the 
strange  echoings  and  dying  of  sound  on  the  heights, 
"the  bird,  which  among  the  petals  of  many- flowered 
spring,  pouring  out  a  dirge,  sends  forth  her  honey- 
voiced  song,"  "  the  crocus  and  the  hyacinth  disorderly 
mixed  in  the  deep  grass  "  —  things  which  the  religion 
of  Dionysus  loves  —  Pan  joins  the  company  of  the 
satyrs.  Amongst  them,  they  give  their  names  to 
insolence  and  mockery,  and  the  finer  sorts  of  malice, 
to  unmeaning  and  ridiculous  fear.  But  the  best  spirits 
have  found  in  them  also  a  certain  human  pathos,  as 
in  displaced  beings,  coming  even  nearer  to  most  men, 
in  their  very  roughness,  than  the  noble  and  delicate 


A   STUDY   OF  DIONYSUS  9 

person  of  the  vine ;  dubious  creatures,  half-way 
between  the  animal  and  human  kinds,  speculating 
wistfully  on  their  being,  because  not  wholly  under- 
standing themselves  and  their  place  in  nature ;  as  the 
animals  seem  always  to  have  this  expression  to  some 
noticeable  degree  in  the  presence  of  man.  In  the  later 
school  of  Attic  sculpture  they  are  treated  with  more 
and  more  of  refinement,  till  in  some  happy  moment 
Praxiteles  conceived  a  model,  often  repeated,  which 
concentrates  this  sentiment  of  true  humour  concerning 
them ;  a  model  of  dainty  natural  ease  in  posture,  but 
with  the  legs  slightly  crossed,  as  only  lowly-bred  gods 
are  used  to  carry  them,  and  with  some  puzzled  trouble 
of  youth,  you  might  wish  for  a  moment  to  smoothe 
away,  puckering  the  forehead  a  little,  between  the 
pointed  ears,  on  which  the  goodly  hair  of  his  animal 
strength  grows  low.  Little  by  little,  the  signs  of 
brute  nature  are  subordinated,  or  disappear;  and  at 
last,  Robetta,  a  humble  Italian  engraver  of  the  fifteenth 
century,  entering  into  the  Greek  fancy  because  it 
belongs  to  all  ages,  has  expressed  it  in  its  most  exqui- 
site form,  in  a  design  of  Ceres  and  her  children,  of 
whom  their  mother  is  no  longer  afraid,  as  in  the 
Homeric  hymn  to  Pan.  The  puck-noses  have  grown 
delicate,  so  that,  with  Plato's  infatuated  lover,  you 
may  call  them  winsome,  if  you  please ;  and  no  one 


10  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

would  wish  those  hairy  little  shanks  away,  with  which 
one  of  the  small  Pans  walks  at  her  side,  grasping  her 
skirt  stoutly ;  while  the  other,  the  sick  or  weary  one, 
rides  in  the  arms  of  Ceres  herself,  who  in  graceful 
Italian  dress,  and  decked  airily  with  fruit  and  corn, 
steps  across  a  country  of  cut  sheaves,  pressing  it  closely 
to  her,  with  a  child's  peevish  trouble  in  its  face,  and 
its  small  goat-legs  and  tiny  hoofs  folded  over  together, 
precisely  after  the  manner  of  a  little  child. 

There  is  one  element  in  the  conception  of  Dionysus, 
which  his  connexion  with  the  satyrs,  Marsyas  being 
one  of  them,  and  with  Pan,  from  whom  the  flute 
passed  to  all  the  shepherds  of  Theocritus,  alike  illus- 
trates, his  interest,  namely,  in  one  of  the  great  species 
of  music.  One  form  of  that  wilder  vegetation,  of 
which  the  Satyr  race  is  the  soul  made  visible,  is  the 
reed,  which  the  creature  plucks  and  trims  into  musical 
pipes.  And  as  Apollo  inspires  and  rules  over  all  the 
music  of  strings,  so  Dionysus  inspires  and  rules  over 
all  the  music  of  the  reed,  the  water-plant,  in  which  the 
ideas  of  water  and  of  vegetable  life  are  brought  close 
together,  natural  property,  therefore,  of  the  spirit  of 
life  in  the  green  sap.  I  said  that  the  religion  of 
Dionysus  was,  for  those  who  lived  in  it,  a  complete 
religion,  a  complete  sacred  representation  and  inter- 
pretation of  the  whole  of  life ;  and  as,  in  his  relation 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  11 

to  the  vine,  he  fills  for  them  the  place  of  Demeter,  is 
the  life  of  the  earth  through  the  grape  as  she  through 
the  grain,  so,  in  this  other  phase  of  his  being,  in  his 
relation  to  the  reed,  he  fills  for  them  the  place  of 
Apollo ;  he  is  the  inherent  cause  of  music  and  poetry ; 
he  inspires ;  he  explains  the  phenomena  of  enthusi- 
asm, as  distinguished  by  Plato  in  the  Phadrus,  the 
secrets  of  possession  by  a  higher  and  more  energetic 
spirit  than  one's  own,  the  gift  of  self-revelation,  of 
passing  out  of  oneself  through  words,  tones,  gestures. 
A  winged  Dionysus,  venerated  at  Amyclse,  was  per- 
haps meant  to  represent  him  thus,  as  the  god  of  en- 
thusiasm, of  the  rising  up  on  those  spiritual  wings,  of 
which  also  we  hear  something  in  the  Phadrus  of  Plato. 
The  artists  of  the  Renaissance  occupied  themselves 
much  with  the  person  and  the  story  of  Dionysus ;  and 
Michelangelo,  in  a  work  still  remaining  in  Florence, 
in  which  he  essayed  with  success  to  produce  a  thing 
which  should  pass  with  the  critics  for  a  piece  of 
ancient  sculpture,  has  represented  him  in  the  fulness, 
as  it  seems,  of  this  enthusiasm,  an  image  of  delighted, 
entire  surrender  to  transporting  dreams.  And  this  is 
no  subtle  after-thought  of  a  later  age,  but  true  to 
certain  finer  movements  of  old  Greek  sentiment, 
though  it  may  seem  to  have  waited  for  the  hand  of 
Michelangelo  before  it  attained  complete  realisation. 


12  A   STUDY   OF   DIONYSUS 

The  head  of  Ion  leans,  as  they  recline  at  the  banquet, 
on  the  shoulder  of  Charmides ;  he  mutters  in  his  sleep 
of  things  seen  therein,  but  awakes  as  the  flute- players 
enter,  whom  Charmides  has  hired  for  his  birthday 
supper.  The  soul  of  Callias,  who  sits  on  the  other 
side  of  Charmides,  flashes  out ;  he  counterfeits,  with 
life-like  gesture,  the  personal  tricks  of  friend  or  foe ; 
or  the  things  he  could  never  utter  before,  he  finds 
words  for  now;  the  secrets  of  life  are  on  his  lips. 
It  is  in  this  loosening  of  the  lips  and  heart,  strictly, 
that  Dionysus  is  the  Deliverer,  Eleutherios ;  and  of 
such  enthusiasm,  or  ecstasy,  is,  in  a  certain  sense,  an 
older  patron  than  Apollo  himself.  Even  at  Delphi, 
the  centre  of  Greek  inspiration  and  of  the  religion 
of  Apollo,  his  claim  always  maintained  itself;  and 
signs  are  not  wanting  that  Apollo  was  but  a  later 
comer  there.  There,  under  his  later  reign,  hard  by 
the  golden  image  of  Apollo  himself,  near  the  sacred 
tripod  on  which  the  Pythia  sat  to  prophesy,  was  to 
be  seen  a  strange  object  —  a  sort  of  coffin  or  cinerary 
urn  with  the  inscription,  "  Here  lieth  the  body  of 
Dionysus,  the  son  of  Semele."  The  pediment  of  the 
great  temple  was  divided  between  them  —  Apollo  with 
the  nine  Muses  on  that  side,  Dionysus,  with  perhaps 
three  times  three  Graces,  on  this.  A  third  of  the 
whole  year  was  held  sacred  to  him ;  the  four  winter 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  13 

months  were  the  months  of  Dionysus ;  and  in  the 
shrine  of  Apollo  itself  he  was  worshipped  with  almost 
equal  devotion. 

The  religion  of  Dionysus  takes  us  back,  then,  into 
that  old  Greek  life  of  the  vineyards,  as  we  see  it  on 
many  painted  vases,  with  much  there  as  we  should 
find  it  now,  as  we  see  it  in  Bennozzo  Gozzoli's  mediae- 
val fresco  of  the  Invention  of  Wine  in  the  Campo 
Santo  at  Pisa  —  the  family  of  Noah,  presented  among 
all  the  circumstances  of  a  Tuscan  vineyard,  around 
the  press  from  which  the  first  wine  is  flowing,  a 
painted  idyll,  with  its  vintage  colours  still  opulent  in 
decay,  and  not  without  its  solemn  touch  of  biblical 
symbolism.  For  differences,  we  detect  in  that  primi- 
tive life,  and  under  that  Greek  sky,  a  nimbler  play  of 
fancy,  lightly  and  unsuspiciously  investing  all  things 
with  personal  aspect  and  incident,  and  a  certain  mys- 
tical apprehension,  now  almost  departed,  of  unseen 
powers  beyond  the  material  veil  of  things,  correspond- 
ing to  the  exceptional  vigour  and  variety  of  the  Greek 
organisation.  This  peasant  life  lies,  in  unhistoric 
time,  behind  the  definite  forms  with  which  poetry  and 
a  refined  priesthood  afterwards  clothed  the  religion  of 
Dionysus ;  and  the  mere  scenery  and  circumstances 
of  the  vineyard  have  determined  many  things  in  its 
development.  The  noise  of  the  vineyard  still  sounds 


14  A   STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS 

in  some  of  his  epithets,  perhaps  in  his  best-known 
name  —  lacchus,  Bacchus.  The  masks  suspended  on 
base  or  cornice,  so  familiar  an  ornament  in  later 
Greek  architecture,  are  the  little  faces  hanging  from 
the  vines,  and  moving  in  the  wind,  to  scare  the  birds. 
That  garland  of  ivy,  the  aesthetic  value  of  which  is 
so  great  in  the  later  imagery  of  Dionysus  and  his 
descendants,  the  leaves  of  which  floating  from  his 
hair,  become  so  noble  in  the  hands  of  Titian  and 
Tintoret,  was  actually  worn  on  the  head  for  coolness ; 
his  earliest  and  most  sacred  images  were  wrought  in 
the  wood  of  the  vine.  The  people  of  the  vineyard 
had  their  feast,  the  little  or  country  Dionysia,  which 
still  lived  on,  side  by  side  with  the  greater  ceremonies 
of  a  later  time,  celebrated  in  December,  the  time  of 
the  storing  of  the  new  wine.  It  was  then  that  the 
potters'  fair  came,  calpis  and  amphora,  together  with 
lamps  against  the  winter,  laid  out  in  order  for  the 
choice  of  buyers  ;  for  Keramus,  the  Greek  Vase,  is  a 
son  of  Dionysus,  of  wine  and  of  Athene,  who  teaches 
men  all  serviceable  and  decorative  art.  Then  the 
goat  was  killed,  and  its  blood  poured  out  at  the  root 
of  the  vines ;  and  Dionysus  literally  drank  the  blood 
of  goats ;  and,  being  Greeks,  with  quick  and  mobile 
sympathies,  8«<n8ai/Aoves,  "superstitious,"  or  rather 
"  susceptible  of  religious  impressions,"  some  among 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  15 

them,  remembering  those  departed  since  last  year, 
add  yet  a  little  more,  and  a  little  wine  and  water  for 
the  dead  also ;  brooding  how  the  sense  of  these 
things  might  pass  below  the  roots,  to  spirits  hungry 
and  thirsty,  perhaps,  in  their  shadowy  homes.  But 
the  gaiety,  that  gaiety  which  Aristophanes  in  the 
Acharnians  has  depicted  with  so  many  vivid  touches, 
as  a  thing  of  which  civil  war  had  deprived  the  villages 
of  Attica,  preponderates  over  the  grave.  The  trav- 
elling country  show  comes  round  with  its  puppets; 
even  the  slaves  have  their  holiday l ;  the  mirth  be- 
comes excessive ;  they  hide  their  faces  under  gro- 
tesque masks  of  bark,  or  stain  them  with  wine-lees,  or 
potters'  crimson  even,  like  the  old  rude  idols  painted 
red ;  and  carry  in  midnight  procession  such  rough 
symbols  of  the  productive  force  of  nature  as  the 
women  and  children  had  best  not  look  upon ;  which 
will  be  frowned  upon,  and  refine  themselves,  or  dis- 
appear, in  the  feasts  of  cultivated  Athens. 

Of  the  whole  story  of  Dionysus,  it  was  the  episode 
of  his  marriage  with  Ariadne  about  which  ancient  art 
concerned  itself  oftenest,  and  with  most  effect.  Here, 
although  the  antiquarian  may  still  detect  circumstances 

1  There  were  some  who  suspected  Dionysus  of  a  secret  demo- 
cratic interest;  though  indeed  he  was  liberator  only  of  men's  hearts, 
and  eAev0epeiif  only  because  he  never  forgot  Eleutheras,  the  little 
place  which,  in  Attica,  first  received  him. 


16  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

which  link  the  persons  and  incidents  of  the  legend 
with  the  mystical  life  of  the  earth,  as  symbols  of  its 
annual  change,  yet  the  merely  human  interest  of  the 
story  has  prevailed  over  its  earlier  significance ;  the 
spiritual  form  of  fire  and  dew  has  become  a  romantic 
lover.  And  as  a  story  of  romantic  love,  fullest  per- 
haps of  all  the  motives  of  classic  legend  of  the  pride 
of  life,  it  survived  with  undiminished  interest  to  a 
later  world,  two  of  the  greatest  masters  of  Italian 
painting  having  poured  their  whole  power  into  it; 
Titian  with  greater  space  of  ingathered  shore  and 
mountain,  and  solemn  foliage,  and  fiery  animal  life ; 
Tintoret  with  profounder  luxury  of  delight  in  the 
nearness  to  each  other,  and  imminent  embrace,  of 
glorious  bodily  presences ;  and  both  alike  with  con- 
summate beauty  of  physical  form.  Hardly  less 
humanised  is  the  Theban  legend  of  Dionysus,  the 
legend  of  his  birth  from  Semele,  which,  out  of  the 
entire  body  of  tradition  concerning  him,  was  accepted 
as  central  by  the  Athenian  imagination.  For  the 
people  of  Attica,  he  comes  from  Bceotia,  a  country 
of  northern  marsh  and  mist,  but  from  whose  sombre, 
black  marble  towns  came  also  the  vine,  the  musical 
reed  cut  from  its  sedges,  and  the  worship  of  the 
Graces,  always  so  closely  connected  with  the  religion 
of  Dionysus.  "  At  Thebes  alone,"  says  Sophocles, 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  17 

"mortal  women  bear  immortal  gods."  His  mother 
is  the  daughter  of  Cadmus,  himself  marked  out  by 
many  curious  circumstances  as  the  close  kinsman  of 
the  earth,  to  which  he  all  but  returns  at  last,  as  the 
serpent,  in  his  old  age,  attesting  some  closer  sense 
lingering  there  of  the  affinity  of  man  with  the  dust 
from  whence  he  came.  Semele,  an  old  Greek  word, 
as  it  seems,  for  the  surface  of  the  earth,  the  daughter 
of  Cadmus,  beloved  by  Zeus,  desires  to  see  her  lover 
in  the  glory  with  which  he  is  seen  by  the  immortal 
Hera.  He  appears  to  her  in  lightning.  But  the 
mortal  may  not  behold  him  and  live.  Semele  gives 
premature  birth  to  the  child  Dionysus ;  whom,  to 
preserve  it  from  the  jealousy  of  Hera,  Zeus  hides  in 
a  part  of  his  thigh,  the  child  returning  into  the  loins 
of  its  father,  whence  in  due  time  it  is  born  again. 
Yet  in  this  fantastic  story,  hardly  less  than  in  the 
legend  of  Ariadne,  the  story  of  Dionysus  has  become 
a  story  of  human  persons,  with  human  fortunes,  and 
even  more  intimately  human  appeal  to  sympathy ;  so 
that  Euripides,  pre-eminent  as  a  poet  of  pathos,  finds 
in  it  a  subject  altogether  to  his  mind.  All  the  interest 
now  turns  on  the  development  of  its  points  of  moral 
or  sentimental  significance ;  the  love  of  the  immortal 
for  the  mortal,  the  presumption  of  the  daughter  of 
man  who  desires  to  see  the  divine  form  as  it  is ; 
c 


18  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

on  the  fact  that .  not  without  loss  of  sight,  or  life 
itself,  can  man  look  upon  it.  The  travail  of  nature 
has  been  transformed  into  the  pangs  of  the  human 
mother;  and  the  poet  dwells  much  on  the  pathetic 
incident  of  death  in  childbirth,  making  Dionysus,  as 
Callimachus  calls  him,  a  seven  months'  child,  cast  out 
among  its  enemies,  motherless.  And  as  a  consequence 
of  this  human  interest,  the  legend  attaches  itself,  as 
in  an  actual  history,  to  definite  sacred  objects  and 
places,  the  venerable  relic  of  the  wooden  image  which 
fell  into  the  chamber  of  Semele  with  the  lightning- 
flash,  and  which  the  piety  of  a  later  age  covered  with 
plates  of  brass ;  the  Ivy-Fountain  near  Thebes,  the 
water  of  which  was  so  wonderfully  bright  and  sweet 
to  drink,  where  the  nymphs  bathed  the  new-born 
child ;  the  grave  of  Semele,  in  a  sacred  enclosure 
grown  with  ancient  vines,  where  some  volcanic  heat 
or  flame  was  perhaps  actually  traceable,  near  the 
lightning-struck  ruins  of  her  supposed  abode. 

Yet,  though  the  mystical  body  of  the  earth  is  for- 
gotten in  the  human  anguish  of  the  mother  of  Dio- 
nysus, the  sense  of  his  essence  of  fire  and  dew  still 
lingers  in  his  most  sacred  name,  as  the  son  of  Semele, 
Dithyrambus.  We  speak  of  a  certain  wild  music  in 
words  or  rhythm  as  dithyrambic,  like  the  dithyram- 
bus,  that  is,  the  wild  choral-singing  of  the  worshippers 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  19 

of  Dionysus.  But  Dithyrambus  seems  to  have  been, 
in  the  first  instance,  the  name,  not  of  the  hymn,  but 
of  the  god  to  whom  the  hymn  is  sung ;  and,  through 
a  tangle  of  curious  etymological  speculations  as  to  the 
precise  derivation  of  this  name,  one  thing  seems  clearly 
visible,  that  it  commemorates,  namely,  the  double 
birth  of  the  vine-god;  that  he  is  born  once  and 
again ;  his  birth,  first  of  fire,  and  afterwards  of  dew ; 
the  two  dangers  that  beset  him ;  his  victory  over  two 
enemies,  the  capricious,  excessive  heats  and  colds  of 
spring. 

He  is  irvpiytvris,  then,  fire-born,  the  son  of  light- 
ning; lightning  being  to  light,  as  regards  concentra- 
tion, what  wine  is  to  the  other  strengths  of  the  earth. 
And  who  that  has  rested  a  hand  on  the  glittering  silex 
of  a  vineyard  slope  in  August,  where  the  pale  globes 
of  sweetness  are  lying,  does  not  feel  this?  It  is 
out  of  the  bitter  salts  of  a  smitten,  volcanic  soil  that 
it  comes  up  with  the  most  curious  virtues.  The 
mother  faints  and  is  parched  up  by  the  heat  which 
brings  the  child  to  the  birth ;  and  it  pierces  through, 
a  wonder  of  freshness,  drawing  its  everlasting  green 
and  typical  coolness  out  of  the  midst  of  the  ashes ; 
its  own  stem  becoming  at  last  like  a  tangled  mass  of 
tortured  metal.  In  thinking  of  Dionysus,  then,  as 
fire-born,  the  Greeks  apprehend  and  embody  the  sen- 


20  A  STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS 

timent,  the  poetry,  of  all  tender  things  which  grow 
out  of  a  hard  soil,  or  in  any  sense  blossom  before  the 
leaf,  like  the  little  mezereon-plant  of  English  gardens, 
with  its  pale-purple,  wine- scented  flowers  upon  the 
leafless  twigs  in  February,  or  like  the  almond-trees  of 
Tuscany,  or  Aaron's  rod  that  budded,  or  the  staff  in 
the  hand  of  the  Pope  when  Tannhauser's  repentance 
is  accepted. 

And  his  second  birth  is  of  the  dew.  The  fire  of 
which  he  was  born  would  destroy  him  in  his  turn,  as 
it  withered  up  his  mother ;  a  second  danger  comes ; 
from  this  the  plant  is  protected  by  the  influence  of 
the  cooling  cloud,  the  lower  part  of  his  father  the  sky, 
in  which  it  is  wrapped  and  hidden,  and  of  which  it  is 
born  again,  its  second  mother  being,  in  some  versions 
of  the  legend,  Hy£  —  the  Dew.  The  nursery,  where 
Zeus  places  it  to  be  brought  up,  is  a  cave  in  Mount 
Nysa,  sought  by  a  misdirected  ingenuity  in  many 
lands,  but  really,  like  the  place  of  the  carrying  away 
of  Persephone,  a  place  of  fantasy,  the  oozy  place  of 
springs  in  the  hollow  of  the  hillside,  nowhere  and  every- 
where, where  the  vine  was  "invented."  The  nymphs 
of  the  trees  overshadow  it  from  above ;  the  nymphs  of 
the  springs  sustain  it  from  below  —  the  Hyades,  those 
first  leaping  maenads,  who,  as  the  springs  become  rain- 
clouds,  go  up  to  heaven  among  the  stars,  and  descend 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  21 

again,  as  dew  or  shower,  upon  it ;  so  that  the  religion 
of  Dionysus  connects  itself,  not  with  tree-worship  only, 
but  also  with  ancient  water- worship,  the  worship  of  the 
spiritual  forms  of  springs  and  streams.  To  escape  from 
his  enemies  Dionysus  leaps  into  the  sea,  the  original 
of  all  rain  and  springs,  whence,  in  early  summer,  the 
women  of  Elis  and  Argos  were  wont  to  call  him,  with 
the  singing  of  a  hymn.  And  again,  in  thus  commem- 
orating Dionysus  as  born  of  the  dew,  the  Greeks  appre- 
hend and  embody  the  sentiment,  the  poetry,  of  water. 
For  not  the  heat  only,  but  its  solace  —  the  freshness  of 
the  cup — this  too  was  felt  by  those  people  of  the  vine- 
yard, whom  the  prophet  Melampus  had  taught  to  mix 
always  their  wine  with  water,  and  with  whom  the  water- 
ing of  the  vines  became  a  religious  ceremony ;  the  very 
dead,  as  they  thought,  drinking  of  and  refreshed  by  the 
stream.  And  who  that  has  ever  felt  the  heat  of  a  south- 
ern country  does  not  know  this  poetry,  the  motive  of 
the  loveliest  of  all  the  works  attributed  to  Giorgione, 
the  Fete  Champetre  in  the  Louvre  ;  the  intense  sensa- 
tions, the  subtle  and  far-reaching  symbolisms,  which, 
in  these  places,  cling  about  the  touch  and  sound  and 
sight  of  it?  Think  of  the  darkness  of  the  well  in 
the  breathless  court,  with  the  delicate  ring  of  ferns 
kept  alive  just  within  the  opening ;  of  the  sound  of 
the  fresh  water  flowing  through  the  wooden  pipes  into 


22  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

the  houses  of  Venice,  on  summer  mornings ;  of  the 
cry  Acqua  fresco, !  at  Padua  or  Verona,  when  the 
people  run  to  buy  what  they  prize,  in  its  rare  purity, 
more  than  wine,  bringing  pleasures  so  full  of  exquisite 
appeal  to  the  imagination,  that,  in  these  streets,  the 
very  beggars,  one  thinks,  might  exhaust  all  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  epicurean. 

Out  of  all  these  fancies  comes  the  vine-growers'  god, 
the  spiritual  form  of  fire  and  dew.  Beyond  the  famous 
representations  of  Dionysus  in  later  art  and  poetry — 
the  Bacchanals  of  Euripides,  the  statuary  of  the  school 
of  Praxiteles  —  a  multitude  of  literary  allusions  and 
local  customs  carry  us  back  to  this  world  of  vision 
unchecked  by  positive  knowledge,  in  which  the  myth 
is  begotten  among  a  primitive  people,  as  they  won- 
dered over  the  life  of  the  thing  their  hands  helped 
forward,  till  it  became  for  them  a  kind  of  spirit,  and 
their  culture  of  it  a  kind  of  worship.  Dionysus,  as  we 
see  him  in  art  and  poetry,  is  the  projected  expression 
of  the  ways  and  dreams  of  this  primitive  people, 
brooded  over  and  harmonised  by  the  energetic  Greek 
imagination ;  the  religious  imagination  of  the  Greeks 
being,  precisely,  a  unifying  or  identifying  power,  bring- 
ing together  things  naturally  asunder,  making,  as  it 
were,  for  the  human  body  a  soul  of  waters,  for  the 
human  soul  a  body  of  flowers  ;  welding  into  something 


A   STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  23 

like  the  identity  of  a  human  personality  the  whole 
range  of  man's  experiences  of  a  given  object,  or  series 
of  objects  —  all  their  outward  qualities,  and  the  visible 
facts  regarding  them  —  all  the  hidden  ordinances  by 
which  those  facts  and  qualities  hold  of  unseen  forces, 
and  have  their  roots  in  purely  visionary  places. 

Dionysus  came  later  than  the  other  gods  to  the 
centres  of  Greek  life ;  and,  as  a  consequence  of  this, 
he  is  presented  to  us  in  an  earlier  stage  of  develop- 
ment than  they ;  that  element  of  natural  fact  which 
is  the  original  essence  of  all  mythology  being  more 
unmistakeably  impressed  upon  us  here  than  in  other 
myths.  Not  the  least  interesting  point  in  the  study 
of  him  is,  that  he  illustrates  very  clearly,  not  only 
the  earlier,  but  also  a  certain  later  influence  of  this 
element  of  natural  fact,  in  the  development  of  the 
gods  of  Greece.  For  the  physical  sense,  latent  in  it, 
is  the  clue,  not  merely  to  the  original  signification 
of  the  incidents  of  the  divine  story,  but  also  to  the 
source  of  the  peculiar  imaginative  expression  which 
its  persons  subsequently  retain,  in  the  forms  of  the 
higher  Greek  sculpture.  And  this  leads  me  to  some 
general  thoughts  on  the  relation  of  Greek  sculpture 
to  mythology,  which  may  help  to  explain  what  the 
function  of  the  imagination  in  Greek  sculpture  really 
was,  in  its  handling  of  divine  persons. 


24  A   STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

That  Zeus  is,  in  earliest,  original,  primitive  inten- 
tion, the  open  sky,  across  which  the  thunder  some- 
times sounds,  and  from  which  the  rain  descends  — 
is  a  fact  which  not  only  explains  the  various  stories 
related  concerning  him,  but  determines  also  the  ex- 
pression which  he  retained  in  the  work  of  Pheidias,  so 
far  as  it  is  possible  to  recall  it,  long  after  the  growth 
of  those  later  stories  had  obscured,  for  the  minds  of 
his  worshippers,  his  primary  signification.  If  men  felt, 
as  Arrian  tells  us,  that  it  was  a  calamity  to  die  without 
having  seen  the  Zeus  of  Olyrnpia ;  that  was  because 
they  experienced  the  impress  there  of  that  which  the 
eye  and  the  whole  being  of  man  love  to  find  above 
him ;  and  the  genius  of  Pheidias  had  availed  to  shed, 
upon  the  gold  and  ivory  of  the  physical  form,  the 
blandness,  the  breadth,  the  smile  of  the  open  sky ;  the 
mild  heat  of  it  still  coming  and  going,  in  the  face  of 
the  father  of  all  the  children  of  sunshine  and  shower ; 
as  if  one  of  the  great  white  clouds  had  composed 
itself  into  it,  and  looked  down  upon  them  thus,  out 
of  the  midsummer  noonday;  so  that  those  things 
might  be  felt  as  warm,  and  fresh,  and  blue,  by  the 
young  and  the  old,  the  weak  and  the  strong,  who 
came  to  sun  themselves  in  the  god's  presence,  as 
procession  and  hymn  rolled  on,  in  the  fragrant  and 
tranquil  courts  of  the  great  Olympian  temple ;  while 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  25 

all  the  time  those  people  consciously  apprehended  in 
the  carved  image  of  Zeus  none  but  the  personal,  and 
really  human,  characteristics. 

Or  think,  again,  of  the  Zeus  of  Dodona.  The 
oracle  of  Dodona,  with  its  dim  grove  of  oaks,  and 
sounding  instruments  of  brass  to  husband  the  faintest 
whisper  in  the  leaves,  was  but  a  great  consecration  of 
that  sense  of  a  mysterious  will,  of  which  people  still 
feel,  or  seem  to  feel,  the  expression,  in  the  motions 
of  the  wind,  as  it  comes  and  goes,  and  which  makes 
it,  indeed,  seem  almost  more  than  a  mere  symbol 
of  the  spirit  within  us.  For  Zeus  was,  indeed,  the 
god  of  the  winds  also ;  ^Eolus,  their  so-called  god, 
being  only  his  mortal  minister,  as  having  come,  by 
long  study  of  them,  through  signs  in  the  fire  and 
the  like,  to  have  a  certain  communicable  skill  regard- 
ing them,  in  relation  to  practical  uses.  Now,  suppose 
a  Greek  sculptor  to  have  proposed  to  himself  to  pre- 
sent to  his  worshippers  the  image  of  this  Zeus  of 
Dodona,  who  is  in  the  trees  and  on  the  currents  of 
the  air.  Then,  if  he  had  been  a  really  imaginative 
sculptor,  working  as  Pheidias  worked,  the  very  soul  of 
those  moving,  sonorous  creatures  would  have  passed 
through  his  hand,  into  the  eyes  and  hair  of  the  image ; 
as  they  can  actually  pass  into  the  visible  expression 
of  those  who  have  drunk  deeply  of  them  ;  as  we  may 


26  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

notice,  sometimes,  in  our  walks  on  mountain  or 
shore. 

Victory  again  —  Nike  —  associated  so  often  with 
Zeus  —  on  the  top  of  his  staff,  on  the  foot  of  his 
throne,  on  the  palm  of  his  extended  hand  —  meant 
originally,  mythologic  science  tells  us,  only  the  great 
victory  of  the  sky,  the  triumph  of  morning  over  dark- 
ness. But  that  physical  morning  of  her  origin  has  its 
ministry  to  the  later  aesthetic  sense  also.  For  if 
Nike,  when  she  appears  in  company  with  the  mortal, 
and  wholly  fleshly  hero,  in  whose  chariot  she  stands  to 
guide  the  horses,  or  whom  she  crowns  with  her  gar- 
land of  parsley  or  bay,  or  whose  names  she  writes  on 
a  shield,  is  imaginatively  conceived,  it  is  because  the 
old  skyey  influences  are  still  not  quite  suppressed  in 
her  clear-set  eyes,  and  the  dew  of  the  morning  still 
clings  to  her  wings  and  her  floating  hair. 

The  office  of  the  imagination,  then,  in  Greek  sculp- 
ture, in  its  handling  of  divine  persons,  is  thus  to 
condense  the  impressions  of  natural  things  into  human 
form ;  to  retain  that  early  mystical  sense  of  water,  or 
wind,  or  light,  in  the  moulding  of  eye  and  brow ; 
to  arrest  it,  or  rather,  perhaps,  to  set  it  free,  there,  as 
human  expression.  The  body  of  man,  indeed,  was 
for  the  Greeks,  still  the  genuine  work  of  Prometheus ; 
its  connexion  with  earth  and  air  asserted  in  many 


A  STUDY   OF  DIONYSUS  27 

a  legend,  not  shaded  down,  as  with  us,  through  in- 
numerable stages  of  descent,  but  direct  and  immedi- 
ate ;  in  precise  contrast  to  our  physical  theory  of 
our  life,  which  never  seems  to  fade,  dream  over  it  as 
we  will,  out  of  the  light  of  common  day.  The  oracles 
with  their  messages  to  human  intelligence  from  birds 
and  springs  of  water,  or  vapours  of  the  earth,  were 
a  witness  to  that  connexion.  Their  story  went  back, 
as  they  believed,  with  unbroken  continuity,  and  in 
the  very  places  where  their  later  life  was  lived,  to  a 
past,  stretching  beyond,  yet  continuous  with,  actual 
memory,  in  which  heaven  and  earth  mingled ;  to 
those  who  were  sons  and  daughters  of  stars,  and 
streams,  and  dew ;  to  an  ancestry  of  grander  men  and 
women,  actually  clothed  in,  or  incorporate  with,  the 
qualities  and  influences  of  those  objects ;  and  we  can 
hardly  over-estimate  the  influence  on  the  Greek  imag- 
ination of  this  mythical  connexion  with  the  natural 
world,  at  not  so  remote  a  date,  and  of  the  solem- 
nising power  exercised  thereby  over  their  thoughts. 
In  this  intensely  poetical  situation,  the  historical 
Greeks,  the  Athenians  of  the  age  of  Pericles,  found 
themselves ;  it  was  as  if  the  actual  roads  on  which 
men  daily  walk,  went  up  and  on,  into  a  visible 
wonderland. 

With   such    habitual    impressions    concerning   the 


28  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

body,  the  physical  nature  of  man,  the  Greek  sculptor, 
in  his  later  day,  still  free  in  imagination,  through  the 
lingering  influence  of  those  early  dreams,  may  have 
more  easily  infused  into  human  form  the  sense  of  sun, 
or  lightning,  or  cloud,  to  which  it  was  so  closely  akin, 
the  spiritual  flesh  allying  itself  happily  to  mystical 
meanings,  and  readily  expressing  seemingly  unspeak- 
able qualities.  But  the  human  form  is  a  limiting 
influence  also ;  and  in  proportion  as  art  impressed 
human  form,  in  sculpture  or  in  the  drama,  on  the 
vaguer  conceptions  of  the  Greek  mind,  there  was 
danger  of  an  escape  from  them  of  the  free  spirit  of 
air,  and  light,  and  sky.  Hence,  all  through  the 
history  of  Greek  art,  there  is  a  struggle,  a  Streben, 
as  the  Germans  say,  between  the  palpable  and  limited 
human  form,  and  the  floating  essence  it  is  to  contain. 
On  the  one  hand,  was  the  teeming,  still  fluid  world, 
of  old  beliefs,  as  we  see  it  reflected  in  the  somewhat 
formless  theogony  of  Hesiod ;  a  world,  the  Titanic 
vastness  of  which  is  congruous  with  a  certain  sub- 
limity of  speech,  when  he  has  to  speak,  for  instance, 
of  motion  or  space ;  as  the  Greek  language  itself  has 
a  primitive  copiousness  and  energy  of  words,  for  wind, 
fire,  water,  cold,  sound  —  attesting  a  deep  suscepti- 
bility to  the  impressions  of  those  things — yet  with 
edges,  most  often,  melting  into  each  other.  On  the 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  29 

other  hand,  there  was  that  limiting,  controlling  ten- 
dency, identified  with  the  Dorian  influence  in  the 
history  of  the  Greek  mind,  the  spirit  of  a  severe  and 
wholly  self-conscious  intelligence ;  bent  on  impressing 
everywhere,  in  the  products  of  the  imagination,  the 
definite,  perfectly  conceivable  human  form,  as  the 
only  worthy  subject  of  art;  less  in  sympathy  with 
the  mystical  genealogies  of  Hesiod,  than  with  the 
heroes  of  Homer,  ending  in  the  entirely  humanised 
religion  of  Apollo,  the  clearly  understood  humanity 
of  the  old  Greek  warriors  in  the  marbles  of  ^Egina. 
The  representation  of  man,  as  he  is  or  might  be, 
became  the  aim  of  sculpture,  and  the  achievement  of 
this  the  subject  of  its  whole  history ;  one  early  carver 
had  opened  the  eyes,  another  the  lips,  a  third  had 
given  motion  to  the  feet ;  in  various  ways,  in  spite  of 
the  retention  of  archaic  idols,  the  genuine  human  ex- 
pression had  come,  with  the  truthfulness  of  life  itself. 
These  two  tendencies,  then,  met  and  struggled  and 
were  harmonised  in  the  supreme  imagination,  of 
Pheidias,  in  sculpture  —  of  ^Eschylus,  in  the  drama. 
Hence,  a  series  of  wondrous  personalities,  of  which 
the  Greek  imagination  became  the  dwelling-place ; 
beautiful,  perfectly  understood  human  outlines,  em- 
bodying a  strange,  delightful,  lingering  sense  of 
clouds  and  water  and  sun.  Such  a  world,  the  world 


30  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

of  really  imaginative  Greek  sculpture,  we  still  see, 
reflected  in  many  a  humble  vase  or  battered  coin,  in 
Bacchante,  and  Centaur,  and  Amazon;  evolved  out 
of  that  "  vasty  deep  " ;  with  most  command,  in  the 
consummate  fragments  of  the  Parthenon ;  not,  indeed, 
so  that  he  who  runs  may  read,  the  gifts  of  Greek 
sculpture  being  always  delicate,  and  asking  much  of 
the  receiver ;  but  yet  visible,  and  a  pledge  to  us,  of 
creative  power,  as,  to  the  worshipper,  of  the  presence, 
which,  without  that  material  pledge,  had  but  vaguely 
haunted  the  fields  and  groves. 

This,  then,  was  what  the  Greek  imagination  did 
for  men's  sense  and  experience  of  natural  forces,  in 
Athene,  in  Zeus,  in  Poseidon;  for  men's  sense  and 
experience  of  their  own  bodily  qualities  —  swiftness, 
energy,  power  of  concentrating  sight  and  hand  and 
foot  on  a  momentary  physical  act  —  in  the  close  hair, 
the  chastened  muscle,  the  perfectly  poised  attention  of 
the  quoit-player;  for  men's  sense,  again,  of  ethical 
qualities  —  restless  idealism,  inward  vision,  power  of 
presence  through  that  vision  in  scenes  behind  the  ex- 
perience of  ordinary  men — in  the  idealised  Alex- 
ander. 

To  illustrate  this  function  of  the  imagination,  as 
especially  developed  in  Greek  art,  we  may  reflect  on 
what  happens  with  us  in  the  use  of  certain  names,  as 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  31 

expressing  summarily,  this  name  for  you  and  that  for 
me  —  Helen,  Gretchen,  Mary — a  hundred  associ- 
ations, trains  of  sound,  forms,  impressions,  remem- 
bered in  all  sorts  of  degrees,  which,  through  a  very 
wide  and  full  experience,  they  have  the  power  of 
bringing  with  them ;  in  which  respect,  such  names  are 
but  revealing  instances  of  the  whole  significance,  power, 
and  use  of  language  in  general.  Well,  —  the  mythical 
conception,  projected  at  last,  in  drama  or  sculpture, 
is  the  name,  the  instrument  of  the  identification,  of 
the  given  matter,  —  of  its  unity  in  variety,  its  outline 
or  definition  in  mystery;  its  spiritual  form,  to  use 
again  the  expression  I  have  borrowed  from  William 
Blake  —  form,  with  hands,  and  lips,  and  opened  eye- 
lids —  spiritual,  as  conveying  to  us,  in  that,  the  soul  of 
rain,  or  of  a  Greek  river,  or  of  swiftness,  or  purity. 

To  illustrate  this,  think  what  the  effect  would  be, 
if  you  could  associate,  by  some  trick  of  memory, 
a  certain  group  of  natural  objects,  in  all  their  varied 
perspective,  their  changes  of  colour  and  tone  in 
varying  light  and  shade,  with  the  being  and  image 
of  an  actual  person.  You  travelled  through  a  country 
of  clear  rivers  and  wide  meadows,  or  of  high  windy 
places,  or  of  lowly  grass  and  willows,  or  of  the  Lady 
of  the  Lake;  and  all  the  complex  impressions  of 
these  objects  wound  themselves,  as  a  second  animated 


32  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

body,  new  and  more  subtle,  around  the  person  of 
some  one  left  there,  so  that  they  no  longer  come 
to  'recollection  apart  from  each  other.  Now  try  to 
conceive  the  image  of  an  actual  person,  in  whom, 
somehow,  all  those  impressions  of  the  vine  and  its 
fruit,  as  the  highest  type  of  the  life  of  the  green 
sap,  had  become  incorporate ;  —  all  the  scents  and 
colours  of  its  flower  and  fruit,  and  something  of 
its  curling  foliage ;  the  chances  of  its  growth ;  the 
enthusiasm,  the  easy  flow  of  more  choice  expression, 
as  its  juices  mount  within  one ;  for  the  image  is 
eloquent,  too,  in  word,  gesture,  and  glancing  of  the 
eyes,  which  seem  to  be  informed  by  some  soul  of 
the  vine  within  it :  as  Wordsworth  says, 

"  Beauty  born  of  murmuring  sound 
Shall  pass  into  her  face"  — 

so  conceive  an  image  into  which  the  beauty,  "  born  " 
of  the  vine,  has  passed ;  and  you  have  the  idea  of 
Dionysus,  as  he  appears,  entirely  fashioned  at  last 
by  central  Greek  poetry  and  art,  and  is  consecrated  in 
the  Qlvo<t>6pM  and  the  'AvOeo-TrjpLa,  the  great  festivals 
of  the  Winepress  and  the  Flowers. 

The  word  wine,  and  with  it  the  germ  of  the  myth 
of  Dionysus,  is  older  than  the  separation  of  the  Indo- 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  33 

Germanic  race.  Yet,  with  the  people  of  Athens, 
Dionysus  counted  as  the  youngest  of  the  gods;  he 
was  also  the  son  of  a  mortal,  dead  in  childbirth,  and 
seems  always  to  have  exercised  the  charm  of  the  latest 
born,  in  a  sort  of  allowable  fondness.  Through  the 
fine-spun  speculations  of  modern  ethnologists  and 
grammarians,  noting  the  changes  in  the  letters  of  his 
name,  and  catching  at  the  slightest  historical  records 
of  his  worship,  we  may  trace  his  coming  from  Phrygia, 
the  birthplace  of  the  more  mystical  elements  of  Greek 
religion,  over  the  mountains  of  Thrace.  On  the 
heights  of  Pangaeus  he  leaves  an  oracle,  with  a  per- 
petually burning  fire,  famous  down  to  the  time  of 
Augustus,  who  reverently  visited  it.  Southwards  still, 
over  the  hills  of  Parnassus,  which  remained  for  the 
inspired  women  of  Boeotia  the  centre  of  his  presence, 
he  comes  to  Thebes,  and  the  family  of  Cadmus. 
From  Boeotia  he  passes  to  Attica;  to  the  villages 
first ;  at  last  to  Athens ;  at  an  assignable  date,  under 
Peisistratus ;  out  of  the  country,  into  the  town. 

To  this  stage  of  his  town-life,  that  Dionysus  of 
"  enthusiasm  "  already  belonged ;  it  was  to  the  Athe- 
nians of  the  town,  to  urbane  young  men,  sitting 
together  at  the  banquet,  that  those  expressions  of  a 
sudden  eloquence  came,  of  the  loosened  utterance 
and  finer  speech,  its  colour  and  imagery.  Dionysus, 


34  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

then,  has  entered  Athens,  to  become  urbane  like 
them ;  to  walk  along  the  marble  streets  in  frequent 
procession,  in  the  persons  of  noble  youths,  like  those 
who  at  the  Oschophoria  bore  the  branches  of  the  vine 
from  his  temple,  to  the  temple  of  Athene  of  the 
Parasol,  or  of  beautiful  slaves ;  to  contribute  through 
the  arts  to  the  adornment  of  life,  yet  perhaps  also  in 
part  to  weaken  it,  relaxing  ancient  austerity.  Gradu- 
ally, his  rough  country  feasts  will  be  outdone  by  the 
feasts  of  the  town ;  and  as  comedy  arose  out  of  those, 
so  these  will  give  rise  to  tragedy.  For  his  entrance 
upon  this  new  stage  of  his  career,  his  coming  into  the 
town,  is  from  the  first  tinged  with  melancholy,  as  if  in 
entering  the  town  he  had  put  off  his  country  peace. 
The  other  Olympians  are  above  sorrow.  Dionysus, 
like  a  strenuous  mortal  hero,  like  Hercules  or  Perseus, 
has  his  alternations  of  joy  and  sorrow,  of  struggle  and 
hard-won  triumph.  It  is  out  of  the  sorrows  of  Diony- 
sus, then,  —  of  Dionysus  in  winter  —  that  all  Greek 
tragedy  grows ;  out  of  the  song  of  the  sorrows  of 
Dionysus,  sung  at  his  winter  feast  by  the  chorus  of 
satyrs,  singers  clad  in  goat-skins,  in  memory  of  his 
rural  life,  one  and  another  of  whom,  from  time  to 
time,  steps  out  of  the  company  to  emphasise  and 
develope  this  or  that  circumstance  of  the  story ;  and 
so  the  song  becomes  dramatic.  He  will  soon  forget 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  35 

that  early  country  life,  or  remember  it  but  as  the 
dreamy  background  of  his  later  existence.  He  will 
become,  as  always  in  later  art  and  poetry,  of  dazzling 
whiteness ;  no  longer  dark  with  the  air  and  sun,  but 
like  one  co-Kiarpo^Kus  —  brought  up  under  the  shade 
of  Eastern  porticoes  or  pavilions,  or  in  the  light  that 
has  only  reached  him  softened  through  the  texture  of 
green  leaves ;  honey-pale,  like  the  delicate  people  of 
the  city,  like  the  flesh  of  women,  as  those  old  vase- 
painters  conceive  of  it,  who  leave  their  hands  and 
faces  untouched  with  the  pencil  on  the  white  clay. 
The  ruddy  god  of  the  vineyard,  stained  with  wine-lees, 
or  coarser  colour,  will  hardly  recognise  his  double,  in 
the  white,  graceful,  mournful  figure,  weeping,  chastened, 
lifting  up  his  arms  in  yearning  affection  towards  his 
late-found  mother,  as  we  see  him  on  a  famous  Etrus- 
can mirror.  Only,  in  thinking  of  this  early  tragedy,  of 
these  town-feasts,  and  of  the  entrance  of  Dionysus 
into  Athens,  you  must  suppose,  not  the  later  Athens 
which  is  oftenest  in  our  thoughts,  the  Athens  of  Peri- 
cles and  Pheidias ;  but  that  little  earlier  Athens  of 
Peisistratus,  which  the  Persians  destroyed,  which  some 
of  us  perhaps  would  rather  have  seen,  in  its  early 
simplicity,  than  the  greater  one ;  when  the  old  image 
of  the  god.  carved  probably  out  of  the  stock  of  an 
enormous  vine,  had  just  come  from  the  village  of 


36  A  STUDY  OF   DIONYSUS 

Eleutherae  to  his  first  temple  in  the  Lenceum  —  the 
quarter  of  the  winepresses,  near  the  Limnce  —  the 
marshy  place,  which  in  Athens  represents  the  cave  of 
Nysa;  its  little  buildings  on  the  hill-top,  still  with 
steep  rocky  ways,  crowding  round  the  ancient  temple 
of  Erectheus  and  the  grave  of  Cecrops,  with  the  old 
miraculous  olive-tree  still  growing  there,  and  the  old 
snake  of  Athene  Polias  still  alive  somewhere  in  the 
temple  court. 

The  artists  of  the  Italian  Renaissance  have  treated 
Dionysus  many  times,  and  with  great  effect,  but  always 
in  his  joy,  as  an  embodiment  of  that  glory  of  nature 
to  which  the  Renaissance  was  a  return.  But  in  an 
early  engraving  of  Mocetto  there  is  for  once  a  Diony- 
sus treated  differently.  The  cold  light  of  the  back- 
ground displays  a  barren  hill,  the  bridge  and  towers 
of  an  Italian  town,  and  quiet  water.  In  the  fore- 
ground, at  the  root  of  a  vine,  Dionysus  is  sitting,  in 
a  posture  of  statuesque  weariness ;  the  leaves  of  the 
vine  are  grandly  drawn,  and  wreathing  heavily  round 
the  head  of  the  god,  suggest  the  notion  of  his  incor- 
poration into  it.  The  right  hand,  holding  a  great 
vessel  languidly  and  indifferently,  lets  the  stream  of 
wine  flow  along  the  earth  ;  while  the  left  supports  the 
forehead,  shadowing  heavily  a  face,  comely,  but  full 


A   STUDY   OF   DIONYSUS  37 

of  an  expression  of  painful  brooding.  One  knows 
not  how  far  one  may  really  be  from  the  mind  of  the 
old  Italian  engraver,  in  gathering  from  his  design  this 
impression  of  a  melancholy  and  sorrowing  Dionysus. 
But  modern  motives  are  clearer;  and  in  a  Bacchus 
by  a  young  Hebrew  painter,  in  the  exhibition  of  the 
Royal  Academy  of  1868,  there  was  a  complete  and 
very  fascinating  realisation  of  such  a  motive  ;  the  god 
of  the  bitterness  of  wine,  "  of  things  too  sweet  "  ;  the 
sea-water  of  the  Lesbian  grape  become  somewhat 
brackish  in  the  cup.  Touched  by  the  sentiment  of 
this  subtler,  melancholy  Dionysus,  we  may  ask  whether 
anything  similar  in  feeling  is  to  be  actually  found  in 
the  range  of  Greek  ideas ;  —  had  some  antitype  of 
this  fascinating  figure  any  place  in  Greek  religion? 
Yes ;  in  a  certain  darker  side  of  the  double  god  of 
nature,  obscured  behind  the  brighter  episodes  of 
Thebes  and  Naxos,  but  never  quite  forgotten,  some- 
thing corresponding  to  this  deeper,  more  refined  idea, 
really  existed  —  the  conception  of  Dionysus  Zagreus ; 
an  image,  which  has  left,  indeed,  but  little  effect  in 
Greek  art  and  poetry,  which  criticism  has  to  put 
patiently  together,  out  of  late,  scattered  hints  in 
various  writers ;  but  which  is  yet  discernible,  clearly 
enough  to  show  that  it  really  visited  certain  Greek 
minds  here  and  there  ;  and  discernible,  not  as  a  late 


38  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

after-thought,  but  as  a  tradition  really  primitive,  and 
harmonious  with  the  original  motive  of  the  idea  of 
Dionysus.  In  its  potential,  though  unrealised  scope, 
it  is  perhaps  the  subtlest  dream  in  Greek  religious 
poetry,  and  is,  at  least,  part  of  the  complete  physiog- 
nomy of  Dionysus,  as  it  actually  reveals  itself  to  the 
modern  student,  after  a  complete  survey. 

The  whole  compass  of  the  idea  of  Dionysus,  a  dual 
god  of  both  summer  and  winter,  became  ultimately, 
as  we  saw,  almost  identical  with  that  of  Demeter. 
The  Phrygians  believed  that  the  god  slept  in  winter 
and  awoke  in  summer,  and  celebrated  his  waking  and 
sleeping;  or  that  he  was  bound  and  imprisoned  in 
winter,  and  unbound  in  spring.  We  saw  how,  in  Elis 
and  at  Argos,  the  women  called  him  out  of  the  sea, 
with  the  singing  of  hymns,  in  early  spring ;  and  a 
beautiful  ceremony  in  the  temple  at  Delphi,  which, 
as  we  know,  he  shares  with  Apollo,  described  by  Plu- 
tarch, represents  his  mystical  resurrection.  Yearly, 
about  the  time  of  the  shortest  day,  just  as  the  light 
begins  to  increase,  and  while  hope  is  still  tremulously 
strung,  the  priestesses  of  Dionysus  were  wont  to 
assemble  with  many  lights  at  his  shrine,  and  there, 
with  songs  and  dances,  awoke  the  new-born  child 
after  his  wintry  sleep,  waving  in  a  sacred  cradle,  like 
the  great  basket  used  for  winnowing  corn,  a  symbol- 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  39 

ical  image,  or  perhaps  a  real  infant.  He  is  twofold 
then  —  a  Doppelganger ;  like  Persephone,  he  belongs 
to  two  worlds,  and  has  much  in  common  with  her, 
and  a  full  share  of  those  dark  possibilities  which, 
even  apart  from  the  story  of  the  rape,  belong  to  her. 
He  is  a  Chthonian  god,  and,  like  all  the  children  of 
the  earth,  has  an  element  of  sadness ;  like  Hades 
himself,  he  is  hollow  and  devouring,  an  eater  of 
man's  flesh  —  sarcophagus  —  the  grave  which  con- 
sumed unaware  the  ivory-white  shoulder  of  Pelops. 

»And  you  have  no  sooner  caught  a  glimpse  of  this 
image,  than  a  certain  perceptible  shadow  comes  creep- 
ing over  the  whole  story ;  for,  in  effect,  we  have  seen 
glimpses  of  the  sorrowing  Dionysus,  all  along.  Part 
of  the  interest  of  the  Theban  legend  of  his  birth  is 
that  he  comes  of  the  marriage  of  a  god  with  a  mortal 
woman;  and  from  the  first,  like  mortal  heroes,  he 
falls  within  the  sphere  of  human  chances.  At  first, 
indeed,  the  melancholy  settles  round  the  person  of 
his  mother,  dead  in  childbirth,  and  ignorant  of  the 
glory  of  her  son ;  in  shame,  according  to  Euripides ; 
punished,  as  her  own  sisters  allege,  for  impiety.  The 
death  of  Semele  is  a  sort  of  ideal  or  type  of  this 
peculiar  claim  on  human  pity,  as  the  descent  of 
Persephone  into  Hades,  of  all  human  pity  over  the 
early  death  of  women.  Accordingly,  his  triumph 


40  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

being  now  consummated,  he  descends  into  Hades, 
through  the  unfathomable  Alcyonian  lake,  according 
to  the  most  central  version  of  the  legend,  to  bring 
her  up  from  thence ;  and  that  Hermes,  the  shadowy 
conductor  of  souls,  is  constantly  associated  with  Dio- 
nysus, in  the  story  of  his  early  life,  is  not  without 
significance  in  this  connexion.  As  in  Delphi  the 
winter  months  were  sacred  to  him,  so  in  Athens  his 
feasts  all  fall  within  the  four  months  on  this  and  the 
other  side  of  the  shortest  day ;  as  Persephone  spends 
those  four  months  —  a  third  part  of  the  year  —  in 
Hades.  Son  or  brother  of  Persephone  he  actually 
becomes  at  last,  in  confused,  half-developed  tradition ; 
and  even  has  his  place,  with  his  dark  sister,  in  the 
Eleusinian  mysteries,  as  lacchus ;  where,  on  the  sixth 
day  of  the  feast,  in  the  great  procession  from  Athens 
to  Eleusis,  we  may  still  realise  his  image,  moving  up 
and  down  above  the  heads  of  the  vast  multitude,  as 
he  goes,  beside  " the  two"  to  the  temple  of  Demeter, 
amid  the  light  of  torches  at  noonday. 

But  it  was  among  the  mountains  of  Thrace  that  this 
gloomier  element  in  the  being  of  Dionysus  had  taken 
the  strongest  hold.  As  in  sunny  villages  of  Attica  the 
cheerful  elements  of  his  religion  had  been  developed, 
so,  in  those  wilder  northern  regions,  people  continued 
to  brood  over  its  darker  side,  and  hence  a  current  of 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  41 

gloomy  legend  descended  into  Greece.  The  subject 
of  the  Bacchanals  of  Euripides  is  the  infatuated 
opposition  of  Pentheus,  king  of  Thebes,  to  Dionysus 
and  his  religion ;  his  cruelty  to  the  god,  whom  he 
shuts  up  in  prison,  and  who  appears  on  the  stage 
with  his  delicate  limbs  cruelly  bound,  but  who  is 
finally  triumphant ;  Pentheus,  the  man  of  grief,  being 
torn  to  pieces  by  his  own  mother,  in  the  judicial  mad- 
ness sent  upon  her  by  the  god.  In  this  play,  Eurip- 
ides has  only  taken  one  of  many  versions  of  the  same 
story,  in  all  of  which  Dionysus  is  victorious,  his  enemy 
being  torn  to  pieces  by  the  sacred  women,  or  by  wild 
horses,  or  dogs,  or  the  fangs  of  cold ;  or  the  maenad 
Ambrosia,  whom  he  is  supposed  to  pursue  for  pur- 
poses of  lust,  suddenly  becomes  a  vine,  and  binds  him 
down  to  the  earth  inextricably,  in  her  serpentine  coils. 
In  all  these  instances,  then,  Dionysus  punishes  his 
enemies  by  repaying  them  in  kind.  But  a  deeper 
vein  of  poetry  pauses  at  the  sorrow,  and  in  the  con- 
flict does  not  too  soon  anticipate  the  final  triumph. 
It  is  Dionysus  himself  who  exhausts  these  sufferings. 
Hence,  in  many  forms  —  reflexes  of  all  the  various 
phases  of  his  wintry  existence  —  the  image  of  Dio- 
nysus Zagreus,  the  Hunter — of  Dionysus  in  winter  — 
storming  wildly  on  the  dark  Thracian  hills,  from  which, 
like  Ares  and  Boreas,  he  originally  descends  into 


42  A   STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

Greece  ;  the  thought  of  the  hunter  concentrating  into 
itself  all  men's  forebodings  over  the  departure  of  the 
year  at  its  richest,  and  the  death  of  all  sweet  things  in 
the  long-continued  cold,  when  the  sick  and  the  old  and 
little  children,  gazing  out  morning  after  morning  on 
the  dun  sky,  can  hardly  believe  in  the  return  any  more 
of  a  bright  day.  Or  he  is  connected  with  the  fears, 
the  dangers  and  hardships  of  the  hunter  himself,  lost 
or  slain  sometimes,  far  from  home,  in  the  dense 
woods  of  the  mountains,  as  he  seeks  his  meat  so 
ardently;  becoming,  in  his  chase,  almost  akin  to  the 
wild  beasts  —  to  the  wolf,  who  comes  before  us  in  the 
name  of  Lycurgus,  one  of  his  bitterest  enemies  — 
and  a  phase,  therefore,  of  his  own  personality,  in  the 
true  intention  of  the  myth.  This  transformation,  this 
image  of  the  beautiful  soft  creature  become  an  enemy 
of  human  kind,  putting  off  himself  in  his  madness, 
wronged  by  his  own  fierce  hunger  and  thirst,  and 
haunting,  with  terrible  sounds,  the  high  Thracian 
farms,  is  the  most  tragic  note  of  the  whole  picture, 
and  links  him  on  to  one  of  the  gloomiest  creations  of 
later  romance,  the  were-wolf,  the  belief  in  which  still 
lingers  in  Greece,  as  in  France,  where  it  seems  to 
become  incorporate  in  the  darkest  of  all  romantic 
histories,  that  of  Gilles  de  Retz. 

And   now  we   see    why    the   tradition    of  human 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  43 

sacrifice  lingered  on  in  Greece,  in  connexion  with 
Dionysus,  as  a  thing  of  actual  detail,  and  not  remote, 
so  that  Dionysius  of  Halicarnassus  counts  it  among 
the  horrors  of  Greek  religion.  That  the  sacred  women 
of  Dionysus  ate,  in  mystical  ceremony,  raw  flesh,  and 
drank  blood,  is  a  fact  often  mentioned,  and  com- 
memorates, as  it  seems,  the  actual  sacrifice  of  a  fair 
boy  deliberately  torn  to  pieces,  fading  at  last  into 
a  symbolical  offering.  At  Delphi,  the  wolf  was  pre- 
served for  him,  on  the  principle  by  which  Venus 
loves  the  dove,  and  Hera  peacocks ;  and  there  were 
places  in  which,  after  the  sacrifice  of  a  kid  to  him, 
a  curious  mimic  pursuit  of  the  priest  who  had  offered 
it  represented  the  still  surviving  horror  of  one  who 
had  thrown  a  child  to  the  wolves.  The  three 
daughters  of  Minyas  devote  themselves  to  his  wor- 
ship ;  they  cast  lots,  and  one  of  them  offers  her 
own  tender  infant  to  be  torn  by  the  three,  like  a 
roe ;  then  the  other  women  pursue  them,  and  they 
are  turned  into  bats,  or  moths,  or  other  creatures 
of  the  night.  And  fable  is  endorsed  by  history; 
Plutarch  telling  us  how,  before  the  battle  of  Salamis, 
with  the  assent  of  Themistocles,  three  Persian  captive 
youths  were  offered  to  Dionysus  the  Devourer. 

As,  then,  some  embodied  their   fears  of  winter  in 
Persephone,   others   embodied   them   in  Dionysus,  a 


44  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

devouring  god,  whose  sinister  side  (as  the  best  wine 
itself  has  its  treacheries)  is  illustrated  in  the  dark  and 
shameful  secret  society  described  by  Livy,  in  which 
his  worship  ended  at  Rome,  afterwards  abolished 
by  solemn  act  of  the  senate.  He  becomes  a  new 
Aidoneus,  a  hunter  of  men's  souls ;  like  him,  to  be 
appeased  only  by  costly  sacrifices. 

And  then,  Dionysus  recovering  from  his  mid- 
winter madness,  how  intensely  these  people  conceive 
the  spring  !  It  is  that  triumphant  Dionysus,  cured  of 
his  great  malady,  and  sane  in  the  clear  light  of 
the  longer  days,  whom  Euripides  in  the  Bacchanals 
sets  before  us,  as  still,  essentially,  the  Hunter, 
Zagreus ;  though  he  keeps  the  red  streams  and  torn 
flesh  away  from  the  delicate  body  of  the  god,  in  his 
long  vesture  of  white  and  gold,  and  fragrant  with 
Eastern  odours.  Of  this  I  hope  to  speak  in  another 
paper;  let  me  conclude  this  by  one  phase  more  of 
religious  custom. 

If  Dionysus,  like  Persephone,  has  his  gloomy  side, 
like  her  he  has  also  a  peculiar  message  for  a  cer- 
tain number  of  refined  minds,  seeking,  in  the  later 
days  of  Greek  religion,  such  modifications  of  the  old 
legend  as  may  minister  to  ethical  culture,  to  the 
perfecting  of  the  moral  nature.  A  type  of  second 
birth,  from  first  to  last,  he  opens,  in  his  series  of 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  45 

annual  changes,  for  minds  on  the  look-out  for  it,  the 
hope  of  a  possible  analogy,  between  the  resurrection 
of  nature,  and  something  else,  as  yet  unrealised,  re- 
served for  human  souls ;  and  the  beautiful,  weeping 
creature,  vexed  by  the  wind,  suffering,  torn  to  pieces, 
and  rejuvenescent  again  at  last,  like  a  tender  shoot 
of  living  green  out  of  the  hardness  and  stony  dark- 
ness of  the  earth,  becomes  an  emblem  or  ideal  of 
chastening  and  purification,  and  of  final  victory 
through  suffering.  It  is  the  finer,  mystical  senti- 
ment of  the  few,  detached  from  the  coarser  and  more 
material  religion  of  the  many,  and  accompanying  it, 
through  the  course  of  its  history,  as  its  ethereal,  less 
palpable,  life-giving  soul,  and,  as  always  happens, 
seeking  the  quiet,  and  not  too  anxious  to  make  itself 
felt  by  others.  With  some  unfixed,  though  real,  place 
in  the  general  scheme  of  Greek  religion,  this  phase 
of  the  worship  of  Dionysus  had  its  special  develop- 
ment in  the  Orphic  literature  and  mysteries.  Obscure 
as  are  those  followers  of  the  mystical  Orpheus,  we 
yet  certainly  see  them,  moving,  and  playing  their 
part,  in  the  later  ages  of  Greek  religion.  Old  friends 
with  new  faces,  though  they  had,  as  Plato  witnesses, 
their  less  worthy  aspect,  in  certain  appeals  to  vulgar, 
superstitious  fears,  they  seem  to  have  been  not  without 
the  charm  of  a  real  and  inward  religious  beauty,  with 


46  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

their  neologies,  their  new  readings  of  old  legends, 
their  sense  of  mystical  second  meanings,  as  they  re- 
fined upon  themes  grown  too  familiar,  and  linked,  in 
a  sophisticated  age,  the  new  to  the  old.  In  this 
respect,  we  may  perhaps  liken  them  to  the  mendi- 
cant orders  in  the  Middle  Ages,  with  their  florid, 
romantic  theology,  beyond  the  bounds  of  orthodox 
tradition,  giving  so  much  new  matter  to  art  and 
poetry.  They  are  a  picturesque  addition,  also,  to  the 
exterior  of  Greek  life,  with  their  white  dresses,  their 
dirges,  their  fastings  and  ecstasies,  their  outward  as- 
ceticism and  material  purifications.  And  the  central 
object  of  their  worship  comes  before  us  as  a  tortured, 
persecuted,  slain  god  —  the  suffering  Dionysus  —  of 
whose  legend  they  have  their  own  special  and  eso- 
teric version.  That  version,  embodied  in  a  supposed 
Orphic  poem,  The  Occultation  of  Dionysus,  is  repre- 
sented only  by  the  details  that  have  passed  from  it 
into  the  almost  endless  Dionysiaca  of  Nonnus,  a 
writer  of  the  fourth  century ;  and  the  imagery  has  to 
be  put  back  into  the  shrine,  bit  by  bit,  and  finally 
incomplete.  Its  central  point  is  the  picture  of  the 
rending  to  pieces  of  a  divine  child,  of  whom  a  tradi- 
tion, scanty  indeed,  but  harmonious  in  its  variations, 
had  long  maintained  itself.  It  was  in  memory  of  it, 
that  those  who  were  initiated  into  the  Orphic  mys- 


A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS  47 

teries  tasted  of  the  raw  flesh  of  the  sacrifice,  and 
thereafter  ate  flesh  no  more ;  and  it  connected  itself 
with  that  strange  object  in  the  Delphic  shrine,  the 
grave  of  Dionysus. 

Son,  first,  of  Zeus,  and  of  Persephone  whom  Zeus 
woos,  in  the  form  of  a  serpent  —  the  white,  golden- 
haired  child,  the  best-beloved  of  his  father,  and  des- 
tined by  him  to  be  the  ruler  of  the  world,  grows  up 
in  secret.  But  one  day,  Zeus,  departing  on  a  journey, 
in  his  great  fondness  for  the  child,  delivered  to  him 
his  crown  and  staff,  and  so  left  him  —  shut  in  a  strong 
tower.  Then  it  came  to  pass  that  the  jealous  Here 
sent  out  the  Titans  against  him.  They  approached 
the  crowned  child,  and  with  many  sorts  of  playthings 
enticed  him  away,  to  have  him  in  their  power,  and 
then  miserably  slew  him  —  hacking  his  body  to 
pieces,  as  the  wind  tears  the  vine,  with  the  axe 
Pelekus,  which,  like  the  swords  of  Roland  and  Arthur, 
has  its  proper  name.  The  fragments  of  the  body  they 
boiled  in  a  great  cauldron,  and  made  an  impious 
banquet  upon  them,  afterwards  carrying  the  bones  to 
Apollo,  whose  rival  the  young  child  should  have  been, 
thinking  to  do  him  service.  But  Apollo,  in  great  pity 
for  this  his  youngest  brother,  laid  the  bones  in  a 
grave,  within  his  own  holy  place.  Meanwhile,  Here, 
full  of  her  vengeance,  brings  to  Zeus  the  heart  of  the 


48  A  STUDY  OF  DIONYSUS 

child,  which  she  had  snatched,  still  beating,  from  the 
hands  of  the  Titans.  But  Zeus  delivered  the  heart  to 
Semele ;  and  the  soul  of  the  child  remaining  awhile 
in  Hades,  where  Demeter  made  for  it  new  flesh,  was 
thereafter  born  of  Semele  —  a  second  Zagreus  —  the 
younger,  or  Theban  Dionysus. 


THE    BACCHANALS    OF 
EURIPIDES 


So  far,  I  have  endeavoured  to  present,  with  some- 
thing of  the  concrete  character  of  a  picture,  Dionysus, 
the  old  Greek  god,  as  we  may  discern  him  through  a 
multitude  of  stray  hints  in  art  and  poetry  and  religious 
custom,  through  modern  speculation  on  the  tendencies 
of  early  thought,  through  traits  and  touches  in  our 
own  actual  states  of  mind,  which  may  seem  sympa- 
thetic with  those  tendencies.  In  such  a  picture  there 
must  necessarily  be  a  certain  artificiality;  things 
near  and  far,  matter  of  varying  degrees  of  certainty, 
fact  and  surmise,  being  reflected  and  concentrated, 
for  its  production,  as  if  on  the  surface  of  a  mirror. 
Such  concrete  character,  however,  Greek  poet  or 
sculptor,  from  time  to  time,  impressed  on  the  vague 
world  of  popular  belief  and  usage  around  him;  and 
in  the  Bacchanals  of  Euripides  we  have  an  example 
of  the  figurative  or  imaginative  power  of  poetry, 
selecting  and  combining,  at  will,  from  that  mixed 
E  49 


SO  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

and  floating  mass,  weaving  the  many-coloured  threads 
together,  blending  the  various  phases  of  legend  —  all 
the  light  and  shade  of  the  subject  —  into  a  shape, 
substantial  and  firmly  set,  through  which  a  mere 
fluctuating  tradition  might  retain  a  permanent  place 
in  men's  imaginations.  Here,  in  what  Euripides 
really  says,  in  what  we  actually  see  on  the  stage,  as 
we  read  his  play,  we  are  dealing  with  a  single  real 
object,  not  with  uncertain  effects  of  many  half- 
fancied  objects.  Let  me  leave  you  for  a  time 
almost  wholly  in  his  hands,  while  you  look  very 
closely  at  his  work,  so  as  to  discriminate  its  out- 
lines clearly. 

This  tragedy  of  the  Bacchanals  —  a  sort  of  masque 
or  morality,  as  we  say  —  a  monument  as  central  for 
the  legend  of  Dionysus  as  the  Homeric  hymn  for 
that  of  Demeter,  is  unique  in  Greek  literature,  and 
has  also  a  singular  interest  in  the  life  of  Euripides 
himself.  He  is  writing  in  old  age  (the  piece  was 
not  played  till  after  his  death),  not  at  Athens,  nor  for 
a  polished  Attic  audience,  but  for  a  wilder  and  less 
temperately  cultivated  sort  of  people,  at  the  court  of 
Archelaus,  in  Macedonia.  Writing  in  old  age,  he 
is  in  that  subdued  mood,  a  mood  not  necessarily 
sordid,  in  which  (the  shudder  at  the  nearer  approach 
of  the  unknown  world  coming  over  him  more  fre- 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  51 

quently  than  of  old)  accustomed  ideas,  conformable 
to  a  sort  of  common  sense  regarding  the  unseen, 
oftentimes  regain  what  they  may  have  lost,  in  a 
man's  allegiance.  It  is  a  sort  of  madness,  he  begins 
to  think,  to  differ  from  the  received  opinions  thereon. 
Not  that  he  is  insincere  or  ironical,  but  that  he  tends, 
in  the  sum  of  probabilities,  to  dwell  on  their  more 
peaceful  side;  to  sit  quiet,  for  the  short  remaining 
time,  in  the  reflexion  of  the  more  cheerfully  lighted 
side  of  things;  and  what  is  accustomed  —  what  holds 
of  familiar  usage  —  comes  to  seem  the  whole  essence 
of  wisdom,  on  all  subjects;  and  the  well-known 
delineation  of  the  vague  country,  in  Homer  or 
Hesiod,  one's  best  attainable  mental  outfit,  for  the 
journey  thither.  With  this  sort  of  quiet  wisdom  the 
whole  play  is  penetrated.  Euripides  has  said,  or 
seemed  to  say,  many  things  concerning  Greek  relig- 
ion, at  variance  with  received  opinion;  and  now, 
in  the  end  of  life,  he  desires  to  make  his  peace  — 
what  shall  at  any  rate  be  peace  with  men.  He  is  in 
the  mood  for  acquiescence,  or  even  for  a  palinode; 
and  this  takes  the  direction,  partly  of  mere  submission 
to,  partly  of  a  refining  upon,  the  authorised  religious 
tradition:  he  calmly  sophisticates  this  or  that  ele- 
ment of  it  which  had  seemed  grotesque;  and  has, 
like  any  modern  writer,  a  theory  how  myths  were 


52  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

made,  and  how  in  lapse  of  time  their  first  signification 
gets  to  be  obscured  among  mortals;  and  what  he  sub- 
mits to,  that  he  will  also  adorn  fondly,  by  his  genius 
for  words. 

And  that  very  neighbourhood  afforded  him  his 
opportunity.  It  was  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Pella, 
the  Macedonian  capital,  that  the  worship  of  Dionysus, 
the  newest  of  the  gods,  prevailed  in  its  most  extrava- 
gant form  —  the  Thiasus,  or  wild,  nocturnal  proces- 
sion of  Bacchic  women,  retired  to  the  woods  and  hills 
for  that  purpose,  with  its  accompaniments  of  music, 
and  lights,  and  dancing.  Rational  and  moderate 
Athenians,  as  we  may  gather  from  some  admissions 
of  Euripides  himself,  somewhat  despised  all  that; 
while  those  who  were  more  fanatical  forsook  the 
home  celebrations,  and  went  on  pilgrimage  from 
Attica  to  Cithaeron  or  Delphi.  But,  at  Pella  persons 
of  high  birth  took  part  in  the  exercise,  and  at  a 
later  period  we  read  in  Plutarch  how  Olympias,  the 
mother  of  Alexander  the  Great,  was  devoted  to  this 
enthusiastic  worship.  Although  in  one  of  Botticelli's 
pictures  the  angels  dance  very  sweetly,  and  may 
represent  many  circumstances  actually  recorded  in 
the  Hebrew  scriptures,  yet  we  hardly  understand  the 
dance  as  a  religious  ceremony;  the  bare  mention  of 
it  sets  us  thinking  on  some  fundamental  differences 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  53 

between  the  pagan  religions  and  our  own.  It  is  to 
such  ecstasies,  however,  that  all  nature-worship  seems 
to  tend;  that  giddy,  intoxicating  sense  of  spring  — 
that  tingling  in  the  veins,  sympathetic  with  the 
yearning  life  of  the  earth,  having,  apparently,  in  all 
times  and  places,  prompted  some  mode  of  wild 
dancing.  Coleridge,  in  one  of  his  fantastic  specu- 
lations, refining  on  the  German  word  for  enthusiasm 
—  Schwdrmerei,  swarming,  as  he  says,  "like  the 
swarming  of  bees  together"  —  has  explained  how 
the  sympathies  of  mere  numbers,  as  such,  the  random 
catching  on  fire  of  one  here  and  another  there,  when 
people  are  collected  together,  generates  as  if  by  mere 
contact,  some  new  and  rapturous  spirit,  not  traceable 
in  the  individual  units  of  a  multitude.  Such  swarm- 
ing was  the  essence  of  that  strange  dance  of  the 
Bacchic  women:  literally  like  winged  things,  they 
follow,  with  motives,  we  may  suppose,  never  quite 
made  clear  even  to  themselves,  their  new,  strange, 
romantic  god.  Himself  a  woman-like  god, —  it  was 
on  women  and  feminine  souls  that  his  power  mainly 
fell.  At  Elis,  it  was  the  women  who  had  their  own 
little  song  with  which  at  spring-time  they  professed 
to  call  him  from  the  sea:  at  Brasiae  they  had  their 
own  temple  where  none  but  women  might  enter;  and 
so  the  Thiasus,  also,  is  almost  exclusively  formed 


54  THE   BACCHANALS   OF  EURIPIDES 

of  women  —  of  those  who  experience  most  directly 
the  influence  of  things  which  touch  thought  through 
the  senses  —  the  presence  of  night,  the  expectation 
of  morning,  the  nearness  of  wild,  unsophisticated, 
natural  things  —  the  echoes,  the  coolness,  the  noise 
of  frightened  creatures  as  they  climbed  through  the 
darkness,  the  sunrise  seen  from  the  hill-tops,  the 
disillusion,  the  bitterness  of  satiety,  the  deep  slumber 
which  comes  with  the  morning.  Athenians  visiting 
the  Macedonian  capital  would  hear,  and  from  time 
to  time  actually  see,  something  of  a  religious  custom, 
in  which  the  habit  of  an  earlier  world  might  seem  to 
survive.  As  they  saw  the  lights  flitting  over  the 
mountains,  and  heard  the  wild,  sharp  cries  of  the 
women,  there  was  presented,  as  a  singular  fact  in 
the  more  prosaic  actual  life  of  a  later  time,  an 
enthusiasm  otherwise  relegated  to  the  wonderland 
of  a  distant  past,  in  which  a  supposed  primitive 
harmony  and  understanding  between  man  and  nature 
renewed  itself.  Later  sisters  of  Centaur  and  Amazon, 
the  Maenads,  as  they  beat  the  earth  in  strange  sym- 
pathy with  its  waking  up  from  sleep,  or  as,  in  the 
description  of  the  Messenger,  in  the  play  of  Euripides, 
they  lie  sleeping  in  the  glen,  revealed  among  the  morn- 
ing mists,  were  themselves  indeed  as  remnants  — 
flecks  left  here  and  there  and  not  yet  quite  evaporated 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  55 

under  the  hard  light  of  a  later  and  commoner  day 
—  of  a  certain  cloud-world  which  had  once  covered 
all  things  with  a  veil  of  mystery.  Whether  or  not,  in 
what  was  often  probably  coarse  as  well  as  extravagant, 
there  may  have  lurked  some  finer  vein  of  ethical 
symbolism,  such  as  Euripides  hints  at  —  the  soberer 
influence,  in  the  Thiasus,  of  keen  air  and  animal 
expansion,  certainly,  for  art,  and  a  poetry  delighting 
in  colour  and  form,  it  was  a  custom  rich  in  sugges- 
tion. The  imitative  arts  would  draw  from  it  alto- 
gether new  motives  of  freedom  and  energy,  of  freshness 
in  old  forms.  It  is  from  this  fantastic  scene  that  the 
beautiful  wind-touched  draperies,  the  rhythm,  the 
heads  suddenly  thrown  back,  of  many  a  Pompeian 
wall-painting  and  sarcophagus-frieze  are  originally 
derived;  and  that  melting  languor,  that  perfectly 
composed  lassitude  of  the  fallen  Maenad,  became  a 
fixed  type  in  the  school  of  grace,  the  school  of 
Praxiteles. 

The  circumstances  of  the  place  thus  combining 
with  his  peculiar  motive,  Euripides  writes  the  Bac- 
chanals. It  is  this  extravagant  phase  of  religion, 
and  the  latest-born  of  the  gods,  which  as  an  amende 
honorable  to  the  once  slighted  traditions  of  Greek 
belief,  he  undertakes  to  interpret  to  an  audience 
composed  of  people  who,  like  Scyles,  the  Hellenising 


56  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

king  of  Scythia,  feel  the  attraction  of  Greek  religion 
and  Greek  usage,  but  on  their  quainter  side,  and 
partly  relish  that  extravagance.  Subject  and  audience 
alike  stimulate  the  romantic  temper,  and  the  tragedy 
of  the  Bacchanals,  with  its  innovations  in  metre  and 
diction,  expressly  noted  as  foreign  or  barbarous  — 
all  the  charm  and  grace  of  the  clear-pitched  singing 
of  the  chorus,  notwithstanding  —  with  its  subtleties 
and  sophistications,  its  grotesques,  mingled  with  and 
heightening  a  real  shudder  at  the  horror  of  the 
theme,  and  a  peculiarly  fine  and  human  pathos,  is 
almost  wholly  without  the  reassuring  calm,  generally 
characteristic  of  the  endings  of  Greek  tragedy:  is 
itself  excited,  troubled,  disturbing  —  a  spotted  or 
dappled  thing,  like  the  oddly  dappled  fawn-skins  of 
its  own  masquerade,  so  aptly  expressive  of  the  shifty, 
twofold,  rapidly-doubling  genius  of  the  divine,  wild 
creature  himself.  Let  us  listen  and  watch  the  strange 
masks  coming  and  going,  for  a  while,  as  far  as  may 
be  as  we  should  do  with  a  modern  play.  What  are 
its  charms?  What  is  still  alive,  impressive,  and 
really  poetical  for  us,  in  the  dim  old  Greek  play? 
The  scene  is  laid  at  Thebes,  where  the  memory 
of  Semele,  the  mother  of  Dionysus,  is  still  under 
a  cloud.  Her  own  sisters,  sinning  against  natural 
affection,  pitiless  over  her  pathetic  death  and  finding 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  57 

in  it  only  a  judgment  upon  the  impiety  with  which, 
having  shamed  herself  with  some  mortal  lover,  she 
had  thrown  the  blame  of  her  sin  upon  Zeus,  have, 
so  far,  triumphed  over  her.  The  true  and  glorious 
version  of  her  story  lives  only  in  the  subdued  memory 
of  the  two  aged  men,  Teiresias  the  prophet,  and  her 
father  Cadmus,  apt  now  to  let  things  go  loosely  by, 
who  has  delegated  his  royal  power  to  Pentheus,  the 
son  of  one  of  those  sisters  —  a  hot-headed  and 
impious  youth.  So  things  had  passed  at  Thebes; 
and  now  a  strange  circumstance  has  happened.  An 
odd  sickness  has  fallen  upon  the  women:  Dionysus 
has  sent  the  sting  of  his  enthusiasm  upon  them,  and 
has  pushed  it  to  a  sort  of  madness,  a  madness  which 
imitates  the  true  Thiasus.  Forced  to  have  the  form 
without  the  profit  of  his  worship,  the  whole  female 
population,  leaving  distaff  and  spindle,  and  headed 
by  the  three  princesses,  have  deserted  the  town,  and 
are  lying  encamped  on  the  bare  rocks,  or  under  the 
pines,  among  the  solitudes  of  Cithaeron.  And  it  is 
just  at  this  point  that  the  divine  child,  supposed  to 
have  perished  at  his  mother's  side  in  the  flames, 
returns  to  his  birthplace,  grown  to  manhood. 

Dionysus  himself  speaks  the  prologue.  He  is  on 
a  journey  through  the  world  to  found  a  new  religion; 
and  the  first  motive  of  this  new  religion  is  the  vindi- 


58  THE   BACCHANALS   OF  EURIPIDES 

cation  of  the  memory  of  his  mother.  In  explaining 
this  design,  Euripides,  who  seeks  always  for  pathetic 
effect,  tells  in  few  words,  touching  because  simple, 
the  story  of  Semele  —  here,  and  again  still  more 
intensely  in  the  chorus  which  follows  —  the  merely 
human  sentiment  of  maternity  being  not  forgotten, 
even  amid  the  thought  of  the  divine  embraces  of  her 
fiery  bed-fellow.  It  is  out  of  tenderness  for  her 
that  the  son's  divinity  is  to  be  revealed.  A  yearning 
affection,  the  affection  with  which  we  see  him  lifting 
up  his  arms  about  her,  satisfied  at  last,  on  an  old 
Etruscan  metal  mirror,  has  led  him  from  place  to 
place :  everywhere  he  has  had  his  dances  and  estab- 
lished his  worship; 'and  everywhere  his  presence  has 
been  her  justification.  First  of  all  the  towns  in 
Greece  he  comes  to  Thebes,  the  scene  of  her  sorrows : 
he  is  standing  beside  the  sacred  waters  of  Dirce  and 
Ismenus:  the  holy  place  is  in  sight:  he  hears  the 
Greek  speech,  and  sees  at  last  the  ruins  of  the  place 
of  her  lying-in,  at  once  his  own  birth-chamber  and 
his  mother's  tomb.  His  image,  as  it  detaches  itself 
little  by  little  from  the  episodes  of  the  play,  and  is 
further  characterised  by  the  songs  of  the  chorus,  has 
a  singular  completeness  of  symbolical  effect.  The 
incidents  of  a  fully  developed  human  personality  are 
superinduced  on  the  mystical  and  abstract  essence 


THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES  59 

of  that  fiery  spirit  in  the  flowing  veins  of  the  earth 
—  the  aroma  of  the  green  world  is  retained  in  the 
fair  human  body,  set  forth  in  all  sorts  of  finer  ethical 
lights  and  shades  —  with  a  wonderful  kind  of  subtlety. 
In  the  course  of  his  long  progress  from  land  to  land, 
the  gold,  the  flowers,  the  incense  of  the  East,  have 
attached  themselves  deeply  to  him :  their  effect  and 
expression  rest  now  upon  his  flesh  like  the  gleaming 
of  that  old  ambrosial  ointment  of  which  Homer 
speaks  as  resting  ever  on  the  persons  of  the  gods, 
and  cling  to  his  clothing  —  the  mitre  binding  his 
perfumed  yellow  hair  —  the  long  tunic  down  to  the 
white  feet,  somewhat  womanly,  and  the  fawn-skin, 
with  its  rich  spots,  wrapped  about  the  shoulders.  As 
the  door  opens  to  admit  him,  the  scented  air  of  the 
vineyards  (for  the  vine-blossom  has  an  exquisite  per- 
fume) blows  through;  while  the  convolvulus  on  his 
mystic  rod  represents  all  wreathing  flowery  things 
whatever,  with  or  without  fruit,  as  in  America  all 
such  plants  are  still  called  vines.  "  Sweet  upon  the 
mountains,"  the  excitement  of  which  he  loves  so 
deeply  and  to  which  he  constantly  invites  his  fol- 
lowers—  "sweet  upon  the  mountains,"  and  -pro- 
foundly amorous,  his  presence  embodies  all  the 
voluptuous  abundance  of  Asia,  its  beating  sun,  its 
"fair-towered  cities,  full  of  inhabitants,"  which  the 


60  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

chorus  describe  in  their  luscious  vocabulary,  with  the 
rich  Eastern  names  —  Lydia,  Persia,  Arabia  Felix: 
he  is  a  sorcerer  or  an  enchanter,  the  tyrant  Pentheus 
thinks:  the  springs  of  water,  the  flowing  of  honey 
and  milk  and  wine,  are  his  miracles,  wrought  in 
person. 

We  shall  see  presently  how,  writing  for  that 
northern  audience,  Euripides  crosses  the  Theban 
with  the  gloomier  Thracian  legend,  and  lets  the 
darker  stain  show  through.  Yet,  from  the  first,  amid 
all  this  floweriness,  a  touch  or  trace  of  that  gloom 
is  discernible.  The  fawn-skin,  composed  now  so 
daintily  over  the  shoulders,  may  be  worn  with  the 
whole  coat  of  the  animal  made  up,  the  hoofs  gilded 
and  tied  together  over  the  right  shoulder,  to  leave 
the  right  arm  disengaged  to  strike,  its  head  clothing 
the  human  head  within,  as  Alexander,  on  some  of  his 
coins,  looks  out  from  the  elephant's  scalp,  and  Her- 
cules out  of  the  jaws  of  a  lion,  on  the  coins  of 
Camarina.  Those  diminutive  golden  horns  attached 
to  the  forehead,  represent  not  fecundity  merely,  nor 
merely  the  crisp  tossing  of  the  waves  of  streams,  but 
horns  of  offence.  And  our  fingers  must  beware  of 
the  thyrsus,  tossed  about  so  wantonly  by  himself  and 
his  chorus.  The  pine-cone  at  its  top  does  but  cover 
a  spear-point;  and  the  thing  is  a  weapon  —  the  sharp 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  61 

spear  of  the  hunter  Zagreus  —  though  hidden  now  by 
the  fresh  leaves,  and  that  button  of  pine-cone  (useful 
also  to  dip  in  wine,  to  check  the  sweetness)  which  he 
has  plucked  down,  coming  through  the  forest,  at 
peace  for  a  while  this  spring  morning. 

And  the  chorus  emphasise  this  character,  their 
songs  weaving  for  the  whole  piece,  in  words  more 
effective  than  any  painted  scenery,  a  certain  con- 
gruous background  which  heightens  all;  the  intimate 
sense  of  mountains  and  mountain  things  being  in 
this  way  maintained  throughout,  and  concentrated 
on  the  central  figure.  "He  is  sweet  among  the 
mountains,"  they  say,  "when  he  drops  down  upon 
the  plain,  out  of  his  mystic  musings"  —  and  we  may 
think  we  see  the  green  festoons  of  the  vine  dropping 
quickly,  from  foot-place  to  foot-place,  down  the 
broken  hill-side  in  spring,  when  like  the  Bacchanals, 
all  who  can,  wander  out  of  the  town  to  enjoy  the 
earliest  heats.  "Let  us  go  out  into  the  fields,"  we 
say;  a  strange  madness  seems  to  lurk  among  the 
flowers,  ready  to  lay  hold  on  us  also;  avriKa  ya  iraa-a 
Xopeura  —  soon  the  whole  earth  will  dance  and  sing. 

Dionysus  is  especially  a  woman's  deity,  and  he 
comes  from  the  east  conducted  by  a  chorus  of 
gracious  Lydian  women,  his  true  sisters  —  Bassarids, 
clad  like  himself  in  the  long  tunic,  or  bassara. 


62  THE  BACCHANALS  OF   EURIPIDES 

They  move  and  speak  to  the  music  of  clangorous 
metallic  instruments,  cymbals  and  tambourines,  re- 
lieved by  the  clearer  notes  of  the  pipe;  and  there 
is  a  strange  variety  of  almost  imitative  sounds  for 
such  music,  in  their  very  words.  The  Homeric 
hymn  to  Demeter  precedes  the  art  of  sculpture,  but 
is  rich  in  suggestions  for  it;  here,  on  the  contrary, 
in  the  first  chorus  of  the  Bacchanals,  as  elsewhere  in 
the  play,  we  feel  that  the  poetry  of  Euripides  is 
probably  borrowing  something  from  art;  that  in  these 
choruses,  with  their  repetitions  and  refrains,  he  is 
reproducing  perhaps  the  spirit  of  some  sculptured 
relief  which,  like  Luca  della  Robbia's  celebrated 
work  for  the  organ-loft  of  the  cathedral  of  Florence, 
worked  by  various  subtleties  of  line,  not  in  the  lips 
and  eyes  only,  but  in  the  drapery  and  hands  also, 
to  a  strange  reality  of  impression  of  musical  effect 
on  visible  things. 

They  beat  their  drums  before  the  palace;  and  then 
a  humorous  little  scene,  a  reflex  of  the  old  Dionysiac 
comedy  —  of  that  laughter  which  was  an  essential 
element  of  the  earliest  worship  of  Dionysus  —  follows 
the  first  chorus.  The  old  blind  prophet  Teiresias, 
and  the  aged  king  Cadmus,  always  secretly  true  to 
him,  have  agreed  to  celebrate  the  Thiasus,  and  accept 
his  divinity  openly.  The  youthful  god  has  nowhere 


THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES  63 

said  decisively  that  he  will  have  none  but  young  men 
in  his  sacred  dance.  But  for  that  purpose  they  must 
put  on  the  long  tunic,  and  that  spotted  skin  which 
only  rustics  wear,  and  assume  the  thyrsus  and  ivy- 
crown.  Teiresias  arrives  and  is  seen  knocking  at  the 
doors.  And  then,  just  as  in  the  medieval  mystery, 
comes  the  inevitable  grotesque,  not  unwelcome  to 
our  poet,  who  is  wont  in  his  plays,  perhaps  not 
altogether  consciously,  to  intensify  by  its  relief  both 
the  pity  and  the  terror  of  his  conceptions.  At  the 
summons  of  Teiresias,  Cadmus  appears,  already 
arrayed  like  him  in  the  appointed  ornaments,  in  all 
their  odd  contrast  with  the  infirmity  and  staidness  of 
old  age.  Even  in  old  men's  veins  the  spring  leaps 
again,  and  they  are  more  than  ready  to  begin  danc- 
ing. But  they  are  shy  of  the  untried  dress,  and  one 
of  them  is  blind  —  TTOL  Set  ^o/aeueiv;  Trot  KaOurrdvai 
Tr68a ;  KO.I  Kpara  o-eio-ot  TroXtov ;  and  then  the  difficulty 
of  the  way!  the  long,  steep  journey  to  the  glens! 
may  pilgrims  boil  their  peas?  might  they  proceed  to 
the  place  in  carriages?  At  last,  while  the  audience 
laugh  more  or  less  delicately  at  their  aged  fumblings, 
in  some  co-operative  manner,  the  eyes  of  the  one 
combining  with  the  hands  of  the  other,  the  pair  are 
about  to  set  forth. 

Here  Pentheus  is  seen  approaching  the  palace  in 


64  THE  BACCHANALS  OF   EURIPIDES 

extreme  haste.  He  has  been  absent  from  home,  and 
returning,  has  just  heard  of  the  state  of  things  at 
Thebes  —  the  strange  malady  of  the  women,  the 
dancings,  the  arrival  of  the  mysterious  stranger:  he 
finds  all  the  women  departed  from  the  town,  and  sees 
Cadmus  and  Teiresias  in  masque.  Like  the  exag- 
gerated diabolical  figures  in  some  of  the  religious 
plays  and  imageries  of  the  Middle  Age,  he  is  an 
impersonation  of  stupid  impiety,  one  of  those  whom 
the  gods  willing  to  destroy  first  infatuate.  Alternat- 
ing between  glib  unwisdom  and  coarse  mockery, 
between  violence  and  a  pretence  of  moral  austerity, 
he  understands  only  the  sorriest  motives;  thinks  the 
whole  thing  feigned,  and  fancies  the  stranger,  so 
effeminate,  so  attractive  of  women  with  whom  he 
remains  day  and  night,  but  a  poor  sensual  creature, 
and  the  real  motive  of  the  Bacchic  women  the  indul- 
gence of  their  lust;  his  ridiculous  old  grandfather 
he  is  ready  to  renounce,  and  accuses  Teiresias  of 
having  in  view  only  some  fresh  source  of  professional 
profit  to  himself  in  connexion  with  some  new-fangled 
oracle;  his  petty  spite  avenges  itself  on  the  prophet 
by  an  order  to  root  up  the  sacred  chair,  where  he  sits 
to  watch  the  birds  for  divination,  and  disturb  the 
order  of  his  sacred  place;  and  even  from  the  moment 
of  his  entrance  the  mark  of  his  doom  seems  already 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  65 

set  upon  him,  in  an  impotent  trembling  which  others 
notice  in  him.  Those  of  the  women  who  still 
loitered,  he  has  already  caused  to  be  shut  up  in  the 
common  prison;  the  others,  with  Ino,  Autonoe,  and 
his  own  mother,  Agave,  he  will  hunt  out  of  the  glens; 
while  the  stranger  is  threatened  with  various  cruel 
forms  of  death.  But  Teiresias  and  Cadmus  stay  to 
reason  with  him,  and  induce  him  to  abide  wisely 
with  them;  the  prophet  fittingly  becomes  the  inter- 
preter of  Dionysus,  and  explains  the  true  nature  of 
the  visitor;  his  divinity,  the  completion  or  counter- 
part of  that  of  Demeter;  his  gift  of  prophecy;  all 
the  soothing  influences  he  brings  with  him;  above 
all,  his  gift  of  the  medicine  of  sleep  to  weary 
mortals.  But  the  reason  of  Pentheus  is  already 
sickening,  and  the  judicial  madness  gathering  over 
it.  Teiresias  and  Cadmus  can  but  "go  pray."  So 
again,  not  without  the  laughter  of  the  audience, 
supporting  each  other  a  little  grotesquely  against  a 
fall,  they  get  away  at  last. 

And  then,  again  as  in  those  quaintly  carved  and 
coloured  imageries  of  the  Middle  Age  —  the  martyr- 
dom of  the  youthful  Saint  Firmin,  for  instance, 
round  the  choir  at  Amiens  —  comes  the  full  contrast, 
with  a  quite  medieval  simplicity  and  directness,  be- 
tween the  insolence  of  the  tyrant,  now  at  last  in  sight 


66  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

of  his  prey,  and  the  outraged  beauty  of  the  youthful 
god,  meek,  surrounded  by  his  enemies,  like  some 
fair  wild  creature  in  the  snare  of  the  hunter.  Diony- 
sus has  been  taken  prisoner;  he  is  led  on  to  the  stage, 
with  his  hands  bound,  but  still  holding  the  thyrsus. 
Unresisting  he  had  submitted  himself  to  his  captors; 
his  colour  had  not  changed;  with  a  smile  he  had 
bidden  them  do  their  will,  so  that  even  they  are 
touched  with  awe,  and  are  almost  ready  to  admit  his 
divinity.  Marvellously  white  and  red,  he  stands 
there;  and  now,  unwilling  to  be  revealed  to  the  un- 
worthy, and  requiring  a  fitness  in  the  receiver,  he 
represents  himself,  in  answer  to  the  inquiries  of  Pen- 
theus,  not  as  Dionysus,  but  simply  as  the  god's 
prophet,  in  full  trust  in  whom  he  desires  to  hear  his 
sentence.  Then  the  long  hair  falls  to  the  ground 
under  the  shears;  the  mystic  wand  is  torn  from  his 
hand,  and  he  is  led  away  to  be  tied  up,  like  some 
dangerous  wild  animal,  in  a  dark  place  near  the 
king's  stables. 

Up  to  this  point  in  the  play,  there  has  been  a 
noticeable  ambiguity  as  to  the  person  of  Dionysus, 
the  main  figure  of  the  piece;  he  is  in  part  Dionysus, 
indeed;  but  in  part,  only  his  messenger,  or  minister 
preparing  his  way;  a  certain  harshness  of  effect  in 
the  actual  appearance  of  a  god  upon  the  stage  being 


THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES  67 

in  this  way  relieved,  or  made  easy,  as  by  a  gradual 
revelation  in  two  steps.  To  Pentheus,  in  his  invin- 
cible ignorance,  his  essence  remains  to  the  last  un- 
revealed,  and  even  the  women  of  the  chorus  seem  to 
understand  in  him,  so  far,  only  the  forerunner  of 
their  real  leader.  As  he  goes  away  bound,  therefore, 
they  too,  threatened  also  in  their  turn  with  slavery, 
invoke  his  greater  original  to  appear  and  deliver 
them.  In  pathetic  cries  they  reproach  Thebes  for 
rejecting  them  —  rip  dratVci,  TI/AC  <£evy«s;  yet  they 
foretell  his  future  greatness;  a  new  Orpheus,  he  will 
more  than  renew  that  old  miraculous  reign  over  ani- 
mals and  plants.  Their  song  is  full  of  suggestions  of 
wood  and  river.  It  is  as  if,  for  a  moment,  Dionysus 
became  the  suffering  vine  again;  and  the  rustle  of 
the  leaves,  and  water  come  through  their  words  to 
refresh  it.  The  fountain  of  Dirce  still  haunted  by 
the  virgins  of  Thebes,  where  the  infant  god  was 
cooled  and  washed  from  the  flecks  of  his  fiery  birth, 
becomes  typical  of  the  coolness  of  all  springs,  and 
is  made,  by  a  really  poetic  licence,  the  daughter  of 
the  distant  Achelous  —  the  earliest  born,  the  father 
in  myth,  of  all  Greek  rivers. 

A  giddy  sonorous  scene  of  portents  and  surprises 
follows  —  a  distant,  exaggerated,  dramatic  reflex  of 
that  old  thundering  tumult  of  the  festival  in  the  vine- 


68  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

yard  —  in  which  Dionysus  reappears,  miraculously  set 
free  from  his  bonds.  First,  in  answer  to  the  deep- 
toned  invocation  of  the  chorus,  a  great  voice  is  heard 
from  within,  proclaiming  him  to  be  the  son  of  Semele 
and  Zeus.  Then,  amid  the  short,  broken,  rapturous 
cries  of  the  women  of  the  chorus,  proclaiming  him 
master,  the  noise  of  an  earthquake  passes  slowly;  the 
pillars  of  the  palace  are  seen  waving  to  and  fro;  while 
the  strange,  memorial  fire  from  the  tomb  of  Semele 
blazes  up  and  envelopes  the  whole  building.  The 
terrified  women  fling  themselves  on  the  ground;  and 
then,  at  last,  as  the  place  is  shaken  open,  Dionysus 
is  seen  stepping  out  from  among  the  tottering  masses 
of  the  mimic  palace,  bidding  them  arise  and  fear 
not.  But  just  here  comes  a  long  pause  in  the  action 
of  the  play,  in  which  we  must  listen  to  a  messenger 
newly  arrived  from  the  glens,  to  tell  us  what  he  has 
seen  there,  among  the  Maenads.  The  singular,  some- 
what sinister  beauty  of  this  speech,  and  a  similar  one 
subsequent  —  a  fair  description  of  morning  on  the 
mountain-tops,  with  the  Bacchic  women  sleeping, 
which  turns  suddenly  to  a  hard,  coarse  picture  of 
animals  cruelly  rent  —  is  one  of  the  special  curiosi- 
ties which  distinguish  this  play;  and,  as  it  is  wholly 
narrative,  I  shall  give  it  in  English  prose,  abbreviat- 
ing, here  and  there,  some  details  which  seem  to  have 
but  a  metrical  value :  — 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  69 

"  I  was  driving  my  herd  of  cattle  to  the  summit  of 
the  scaur  to  feed,  what  time  the  sun  sent  forth  his 
earliest  beams  to  warm  the  earth.  And  lo!  three 
companies  of  women,  and  at  the  head  of  one  of  them 
Autonoe,  thy  mother  Agave  at  the  head  of  the  second, 
and  Ino  at  the  head  of  the  third.  And  they  all  slept, 
with  limbs  relaxed,  leaned  against  the  low  boughs  of 
the  pines,  or  with  head  thrown  heedlessly  among  the 
oak-leaves  strewn  upon  the  ground  —  all  in  the  sleep 
of  temperance,  not,  as  thou  saidst,  pursuing  Cypris 
through  the  solitudes  of  the  forest,  drunken  with 
wine,  amid  the  low  rustling  of  the  lotus-pipe. 

"And  thy  mother,  when  she  heard  the  lowing  of 
the  kine,  stood  up  in  the  midst  of  them,  and  cried  to 
them  to  shake  off  sleep.  And  they,  casting  slumber 
from  their  eyes,  started  upright,  a  marvel  of  beauty 
and  order,  young  and  old  and  maidens  yet  unmarried. 
And  first,  they  let  fall  their  hair  upon  their  shoulders; 
and  those  whose  cinctures  were  unbound  re-composed 
the  spotted  fawn-skins,  knotting  them  about  with 
snakes,  which  rose  and  licked  them  on  the  chin. 
Some,  lately  mothers,  who  with  breasts  still  swelling 
had  left  their  babes  behind,  nursed  in  their  arms 
antelopes,  or  wild  whelps  of  wolves,  and  yielded 
them  their  milk  to  drink;  and  upon  their  heads  they 
placed  crowns  of  ivy  or  of  oak,  or  of  flowering  con- 


70  THE  BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES 

volvulus.  Then  one,  taking  a  thyrsus-wand,  struck 
with  it  upon  a  rock,  and  thereupon  leapt  out  a  fine 
rain  of  water;  another  let  down  a  reed  upon  the  earth, 
and  a  fount  of  wine  was  sent  forth  there ;  and  those 
whose  thirst  was  for  a  white  stream,  skimming  the 
surface  with  their  finger-tips,  gathered  from  it  abun- 
dance of  milk;  and  from  the  ivy  of  the  mystic  wands 
streams  of  honey  distilled.  Verily !  hadst  thou  seen 
these  things,  thou  wouldst  have  worshipped  whom 
now  thou  revilest. 

"  And  we  shepherds  and  herdsmen  came  together 
to  question  with  each  other  over  this  matter  —  what 
strange  and  terrible  things  they  do.  And  a  certain 
wayfarer  from  the  city,  subtle  in  speech,  spake  to  us 
—  'O !  dwellers  upon  these  solemn  ledges  of  the  hills, 
will  ye  that  we  hunt  down,  and  take,  amid  her  revel- 
ries, Agave,  the  mother  of  Pentheus,  according  to  the 
king's  pleasure?'  And  he  seemed  to  us  to  speak 
wisely;  and  we  lay  in  wait  among  the  bushes;  and 
they,  at  the  time  appointed,  began  moving  their 
wands  for  the  Bacchic  dance,  calling  with  one  voice 
upon  Bromius !  —  lacchus !  —  the  son  of  Zeus !  and 
the  whole  mountain  was  moved  with  ecstasy  together, 
and  the  wild  creatures;  nothing  but  was  moved  in 
their  running.  And  it  chanced  that  Agave,  in  her 
leaping,  lighted  near  me,  and  I  sprang  from  my 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  71 

hiding-place,  willing  to  lay  hold  on  her;  and  she 
groaned  out,  *O!  dogs  of  hunting,  these  fellows  are 
upon  our  traces;  but  follow  me!  follow!  with  the 
mystic  wands  for  weapons  in  your  hands. '  And  we, 
by  flight,  hardly  escaped  tearing  to  pieces  at  their 
hands,  who  thereupon  advanced  with  knifeless  fingers 
upon  the  young  of  the  kine,  as  they  nipped  the  green; 
and  then  hadst  thou  seen  one  holding  a  bleating 
calf  in  her  hands,  with  udder  distent,  straining  it 
asunder;  others  tore  the  heifers  to  shreds  amongst 
them ;  tossed  up  and  down  the  morsels  lay  in  sight  — 
flank  or  hoof  —  or  hung  from  the  fir-trees,  dropping 
churned  blood.  The  fierce,  horned  bulls  stumbled 
forward,  their  breasts  upon  the  ground,  dragged  on  by 
myriad  hands  of  young  women,  and  in  a  moment  the 
inner  parts  were  rent  to  morsels.  So,  like  a  flock  of 
birds  aloft  in  flight,  they  retreat  upon  the  level  lands 
outstretched  below,  which  by  the  waters  of  Asopus 
put  forth  the  fair-flowering  crop  of  Theban  people 
—  Hysiae  and  Erythrse  —  below  the  precipice  of 
Cithaeron."  — 

A  grotesque  scene  follows,  in  which  the  humour  we 
noted,  on  seeing  those  two  old  men  diffidently  set 
forth  in  chaplet  and  fawn-skin,  deepens  into  a  pro- 
found tragic  irony.  Pentheus  is  determined  to  go 


72  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

out  in  arms  against  the  Bacchanals  and  put  them  to 
death,  when  a  sudden  desire  seizes  him  to  witness 
them  in  their  encampment  upon  the  mountains. 
Dionysus,  whom  he  still  supposes  to  be  but  a  prophet 
or  messenger  of  the  god,  engages  to  conduct  him 
thither;  and,  for  greater  security  among  the  danger- 
ous women,  proposes  that  he  shall  disguise  himself 
in  female  attire.  As  Pentheus  goes  within  for  that 
purpose,  he  lingers  for  a  moment  behind  him,  and 
in  prophetic  speech  declares  the  approaching  end;  — 
the  victim  has  fallen  into  the  net;  and  he  goes  in  to 
assist  at  the  toilet,  to  array  him  in  the  ornaments 
which  he  will  carry  to  Hades,  destroyed  by  his  own 
mother's  hands.  It  is  characteristic  of  Euripides  — 
part  of  his  fine  tact  and  subtlety  —  to  relieve  and  jus- 
tify what  seems  tedious,  or  constrained,  or  merely 
terrible  and  grotesque,  by  a  suddenly  suggested  trait 
of  homely  pathos,  or  a  glimpse  of  natural  beauty,  or 
a  morsel  of  form  or  colour  seemingly  taken  directly 
from  picture  or  sculpture.  So  here,  in  this  fantas- 
tic scene  our  thoughts  are  changed  in  a  moment  by 
the  singing  of  the  chorus,  and  divert  for  a  while  to 
the  dark-haired  tresses  of  the  wood;  the  breath  of  the 
river-side  is  upon  us;  beside  it,  a  fawn  escaped  from 
the  hunter's  net,  is  flying  swiftly  in  its  joy;  like 
it,  the  Maenad  rushes  along;  and  we  see  the  little 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  73 

head  thrown  back  upon  the  neck,  in  deep  aspiration, 
to  drink  in  the  dew. 

Meantime,  Pentheus  has  assumed  his  disguise,  and 
comes  forth  tricked  up  with  false  hair  and  the  dress 
of  a  Bacchanal;  but  still  with  some  misgivings  at  the 
thought  of  going  thus  attired  through  the  streets  of 
Thebes,  and  with  many  laughable  readjustments  of 
the  unwonted  articles  of  clothing.  And  with  the 
woman's  dress,  his  madness  is  closing  faster  round 
him;  just  before,  in  the  palace,  terrified  at  the  noise 
of  the  earthquake,  he  had  drawn  sword  upon  a  mere 
fantastic  appearance,  and  pierced  only  the  empty 
air.  Now  he  begins  to  see  the  sun  double,  and 
Thebes  with  all  its  towers  repeated,  while  his  con- 
ductor seems  to  him  transformed  into  a  wild  beast; 
and  now  and  then,  we  come  upon  some  touches  of  a 
curious  psychology,  so  that  we  might  almost  seem  to 
be  reading  a  modern  poet.  As  if  Euripides  had 
been  aware  of  a  not  unknown  symptom  of  incipient 
madness  (it  is  said)  in  which  the  patient,  losing 
the  sense  of  resistance,  while  lifting  small  objects 
imagines  himself  to  be  raising  enormous  weights,  Pen- 
theus, as  he  lifts  the  thyrsus,  fancies  he  could  lift 
Cithseron  with  all  the  Bacchanals  upon  it.  At  all  this 
the  laughter  of  course  will  pass  round  the  theatre- 
while  those  who  really  pierce  into  the  purpose  of  the 


74  THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES 

poet,  shudder,  as  they  see  the  victim  thus  gro- 
tesquely clad  going  to  his  doom,  already  foreseen 
in  the  ominous  chant  of  the  chorus  —  and  as  it 
were  his  grave-clothes,  in  the  dress  which  makes 
him  ridiculous. 

Presently  a  messenger  arrives  to  announce  that 
Pentheus  is  dead,  and  then  another  curious  narrative 
sets  forth  the  manner  of  his  death.  Full  of  wild, 
coarse,  revolting  details,  of  course  not  without  pa- 
thetic touches,  and  with  the  loveliness  of  the  serving 
Maenads,  and  of  their  mountain  solitudes  —  their 
trees  and  water  —  never  quite  forgotten,  it  de- 
scribes how,  venturing  as  a  spy  too  near  the  sacred 
circle,  Pentheus  was  fallen  upon,  like  a  wild  beast, 
by  the  mystic  huntresses  and  torn  to  pieces,  his 
mother  being  the  first  to  begin  "the  sacred  rites 
of  slaughter." 

And  at  last  Agave  herself  comes  upon  the  stage, 
holding  aloft  the  head  of  her  son,  fixed  upon  the 
sharp  end  of  the  thyrsus,  calling  upon  the  women  of 
the  chorus  to  welcome  the  revel  of  the  Evian  god; 
who,  accordingly,  admit  her  into  the  company,  pro- 
fessing themselves  her  fellow-revellers,  the  Baccha- 
nals being  thus  absorbed  into  the  chorus  for  the  rest 
of  the  play.  For,  indeed,  all  through  it,  the  true, 
though  partly  suppressed  relation  of  the  chorus  to  the 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  75 

Bacchanals  is  this,  that  the  women  of  the  chorus, 
staid  and  temperate  for  the  moment,  following  Dio- 
nysus in  his  alternations,  are  but  the  paler  sisters  of 
his  more  wild  and  gloomy  votaries  —  the  true  fol- 
lowers of  the  mystical  Dionysus  —  the  real  chorus  of 
Zagreus;  the  idea  that  their  violent  proceedings  are 
the  result  of  madness  only,  sent  on  them  as  a  punish- 
ment for  their  original  rejection  of  the  god,  being, 
as  I  said,  when  seen  from  the  deeper  motives  of  the 
myth,  only  a  "  sophism  "  of  Euripides  —  a  piece  of 
rationalism  of  which  he  avails  himself  for  the  pur- 
pose of  softening  down  the  tradition  of  which  he  has 
undertaken  to  be  the  poet.  Agave  comes  on  the 
stage,  then,  bloodstained,  exulting  in  her  "victory 
of  tears,"  still  quite  visibly  mad  indeed,  and  with 
the  outward  signs  of  madness,  and  as  her  mind  wan- 
ders, musing  still  on  the  fancy  that  the  dead  head  in 
her  hands  is  that  of  a  lion  she  has  slain  among  the 
mountains  —  a  young  lion,  she  avers,  as  she  notices 
the  down  on  the  young  man's  chin,  and  his  abundant 
hair  —  a  fancy  in  which  the  chorus  humour  her,  will- 
ing to  deal  gently  with  the  poor  distraught  creature. 
Supported  by  them,  she  rejoices  "exceedingly,  ex- 
ceedingly," declaring  herself  "fortunate"  in  such 
goodly  spoil;  priding  herself  that  the  victim  has 
been  slain,  not  with  iron  weapons,  but  with  her  own 


76  THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES 

white  fingers,  she  summons  all  Thebes  to  come  and 
behold.  She  calls  for  her  aged  father  to  draw  near 
and  see;  and  for  Pentheus  himself,  at  last,  that  he 
may  mount  and  rivet  her  trophy,  appropriately  deco- 
rative there,  between  the  triglyphs  of  the  cornice 
below  the  roof,  visible  to  all. 

And  now,  from  this  point  onwards,  Dionysus  him- 
self becomes  more  and  more  clearly  discernible  as 
the  hunter,  a  wily  hunter,  and  man  the  prey  he  hunts 
for;  "Our  king  is  a  hunter,"  cry  the  chorus,  as  they 
unite  in  Agave's  triumph  and  give  their  sanction  to 
her  deed.  And  as  the  Bacchanals  supplement  the 
chorus,  and  must  be  added  to  it  to  make  the  concep- 
tion of  it  complete;  so  in  the  conception  of  Diony- 
sus also  a  certain  transference,  or  substitution,  must 
be  made  —  much  of  the  horror  and  sorrow  of  Agave, 
of  Pentheus,  of  the  whole  tragic  situation,  must  be 
transferred  to  him,  if  we  wish  to  realise  in  the  older, 
profounder,  and  more  complete  sense  of  his  nature, 
that  mystical  being  of  Greek  tradition  to  whom  all 
these  experiences  —  his  madness,  the  chase,  his  im- 
prisonment and  death,  his  peace  again  —  really 
belong;  and  to  discern  which,  through  Euripides' 
peculiar  treatment  of  his  subject,  is  part  of  the 
curious  interest  of  this  play. 

Through  the   sophism   of    Euripides!      For   that, 


THE  BACCHANALS  OF  EURIPIDES  77 

again,  is  the  really  descriptive  word,  with  which 
Euripides,  a  lover  of  sophisms,  as  Aristophanes 
knows,  himself  supplies  us.  Well;  —  this  softened 
version  of  the  Bacchic  madness  is  a  sophism  of 
Euripides;  and  Dionysus  Omophagus  —  the  eater 
of  raw  flesh,  must  be  added  to  the  golden  image  of 
Dionysus  Meilichius  —  the  honey-sweet,  if  the  old 
tradition  in  its  completeness  is  to  be,  in  spite  of  that 
sophism,  our  closing  impression;  if  we  are  to  catch, 
in  its  fulness,  that  deep  under-current  of  horror  which 
runs  below,  all  through  this  masque  of  spring,  and 
realise  the  spectacle  of  that  wild  chase,  in  which 
Dionysus  is  ultimately  both  the  hunter  and  the 
spoil. 

But  meantime  another  person  appears  on  the  stage ; 
Cadmus  enters,  followed  by  attendants  bearing  on  a 
bier  the  torn  limbs  of  Pentheus,  which,  lying  wildly 
scattered  through  the  tangled  wood,  have  been  with 
difficulty  collected  and  now  decently  put  together  and 
covered  over.  In  the  little  that  still  remains  before 
the  end  of  the  play,  destiny  now  hurrying  things  rap- 
idly forward,  and  strong  emotions,  hopes  and  fore- 
bodings being  now  closely  packed,  Euripides  has 
before  him  an  artistic  problem  of  enormous  diffi- 
culty. Perhaps  this  very  haste  and  close-packing  of 
the  matter,  which  keeps  the  mind  from  dwelling  over- 


78  THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES 

much  on  detail,  relieves  its  real  extravagance,  and 
those  who  read  it  carefully  will  think  that  the  pathos 
of  Euripides  has  been  equal  to  the  occasion.  In  a 
few  profoundly  designed  touches  he  depicts  the  per- 
plexity of  Cadmus,  in  whose  house  a  god  had  become 
an  inmate,  only  to  destroy  it  —  the  regret  of  the  old 
man  for  the  one  male  child  to  whom  that  house  had 
looked  up  as  the  pillar  whereby  aged  people  might 
feel  secure;  the  piteous  craziness  of  Agave;  the  un- 
conscious irony  with  which  she  caresses  the  florid, 
youthful  head  of  her  son;  the  delicate  breaking  of 
the  thing  to  her  reviving  intelligence,  as  Cadmus, 
though  he  can  but  wish  that  she  might  live  on  for 
ever  in  her  visionary  enjoyment,  prepares  the  way, 
by  playing  on  that  other  horrible  legend  of  the  Theban 
house,  the  tearing  of  Actaeon  to  death  —  he  too  de- 
stroyed by  a  god.  He  gives  us  the  sense  of  Agave's 
gradual  return  to  reason  through  many  glimmering 
doubts,  till  she  wakes  up  at  last  to  find  the  real  face 
turned  up  towards  the  mother  and  murderess;  the 
quite  naturally  spontaneous  sorrow  of  the  mother, 
ending  with  her  confession,  down  to  her  last  sigh, 
and  the  final  breaking  up  of  the  house  of  Cadmus; 
with  a  result  so  genuine,  heartfelt,  and  dignified 
withal  in  its  expression  of  a  strange  ineffable  woe, 
that  a  fragment  of  it,  the  lamentation  of  Agave  over 


THE   BACCHANALS   OF   EURIPIDES  79 

her  son,  in  which  the  long-pent  agony  at  last  finds 
vent,  were,  it  is  supposed,  adopted  into  his  paler 
work  by  an  early  Christian  poet,  and  have  figured 
since,  as  touches  of  real  fire,  in  the  Christus  Patiens 
of  Gregory  Nazianzen. 


THE    MYTH    OF  DEMETER   AND 
PERSEPHONE 


No  chapter  in  the  history  of  human  imagination  is 
more  curious  than  the  myth  of  Demeter,  and  Kore 
or  Persephone.  Alien  in  some  respects  from  the 
genuine  traditions  of  Greek  mythology,  a  relic  of 
the  earlier  inhabitants  of  Greece,  and  having  but  a 
subordinate  place  in  the  religion  of  Homer,  it  yet 
asserted  its  interest,  little  by  little,  and  took  a  com- 
plex hold  on  the  minds  of  the  Greeks,  becoming 
finally  the  central  and  most  popular  subject  of  their 
national  worship.  Following  its  changes,  we  come 
across  various  phases  of  Greek  culture,  which  are  not 
without  their  likenesses  in  the  modern  mind.  We 
trace  it  in  the  dim  first  period  of  instinctive  popular 
conception;  we  see  it  connecting  itself  with  many 
impressive  elements  of  art,  and  poetry,  and  religious 
custom,  with  the  picturesque  superstitions  of  the 
many,  and  with  the  finer  intuitions  of  the  few;  and 
80 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  8} 

besides  this,  it  is  in  itself  full  of  interest  and  sugges- 
tion, to  all  for  whom  the  ideas  of  the  Greek  religion 
have  any  real  meaning  in  the  modern  world.  And 
the  fortune  of  the  myth  has  not  deserted  it  in  later 
times.  In  the  year  1780,  the  long-lost  text  of  the 
Homeric  Hymn  to  Demeter  was  discovered  among 
the  manuscripts  of  the  imperial  library  at  Moscow; 
and,  in  our  own  generation,  the  tact  of  an  eminent 
student  of  Greek  art,  Sir  Charles  Newton,  has  restored 
to  the  world  the  buried  treasures  of  the  little  temple 
and  precinct  of  Demeter,  at  Cnidus,  which  have 
many  claims  to  rank  in  the  central  order  of  Greek 
sculpture.  The  present  essay  is  an  attempt  to  select 
and  weave  together,  for  those  who  are  now  approach- 
ing the  deeper  study  of  Greek  thought,  whatever  de- 
tails in  the  development  of  this  myth,  arranged  with 
a  view  rather  to  a  total  impression  than  to  the  debate 
of  particular  points,  may  seem  likely  to  increase  their 
stock  of  poetical  impressions,  and  to  add  to  this 
some  criticisms  on  the  expression  which  it  has  left 
of  itself  in  extant  art  and  poetry. 

The  central  expression,  then,  of  the  story  of  De- 
meter  and  Persephone  is  the  Homeric  hymn,  to  which 
Grote  has  assigned  a  date  at  least  as  early  as  six  hun- 
dred years  before  Christ.  The  one  survivor  of  a 
whole  family  of  hymns  on  this  subject,  it  was  written, 


82  THE   MYTH   OF 

perhaps,  for  one  of  those  contests  which  took  place 
on  the  seventh  day  of  the  Eleusinian  festival,  and 
in  which  a  bunch  of  ears  of  corn  was  the  prize ;  per- 
haps, for  actual  use  in  the  mysteries  themselves,  by 
the  Hierophantes,  or  Interpreter,  who  showed  to  the 
worshippers  at  Eleusis  those  sacred  places  to  which 
the  poem  contains  so  many  references.  About  the 
composition  itself  there  are  many  difficult  questions, 
with  various  surmises  as  to  why  it  has  remained  only 
in  this  unique  manuscript  of  the  end  of  the  fourteenth 
century.  Portions  of  the  text  are  missing,  and  there 
are  probably  some  additions  by  later  hands;  yet 
most  scholars  have  admitted  that  it  possesses  some 
of  the  true  characteristics  of  the  Homeric  style,  some 
genuine  echoes  of  the  age  immediately  succeeding 
that  which  produced  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey. 
Listen  now  to  a  somewhat  abbreviated  version  of  it. 

"  I  begin  the  song  of  Demeter  "  —  says  the  prize- 
poet,  or  the  Interpreter,  the  Sacristan  of  the  holy 
places  —  "the  song  of  Demeter  and  her  daughter 
Persephone,  whom  Aidoneus  carried  away  by  the 
consent  of  Zeus,  as  she  played,  apart  from  her  mother, 
with  the  deep-bosomed  daughters  of  the  Ocean, 
gathering  flowers  in  a  meadow  of  soft  grass  —  roses 
and  the  crocus  and  fair  violets  and  flags,  and  hya- 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  83 

cinths,  and,  above  all,  the  strange  flower  of  the  narcis- 
sus, which  the  Earth,  favouring  the  desire  of  Aidoneus, 
brought  forth  for  the  first  time,  to  snare  the  footsteps 
of  the  flower-like  girl.  A  hundred  heads  of  blossom 
grew  up  from  the  roots  of  it,  and  the  sky  and  the 
earth  and  the  salt  wave  of  the  sea  were  glad  at  the 
scent  thereof.  She  stretched  forth  her  hands  to  take 
the  flower ;  thereupon  the  earth  opened,  and  the  king 
of  the  great  nation  of  the  dead  sprang  out  with  his 
immortal  horses.  He  seized  the  unwilling  girl,  and 
bore  her  away  weeping,  on  his  golden  chariot.  She 
uttered  a  shrill  cry,  calling  upon  her  father  Zeus ;  but 
neither  man  nor  god  heard  her  voice,  nor  even  the 
nymphs  of  the  meadow  where  she  played ;  except 
Hecate  only,  the  daughter  of  Persaeus,  sitting,  as 
ever,  in  her  cave,  half  veiled  with  a  shining  veil, 
thinking  delicate  thoughts ;  she,  and  the  Sun  also, 
heard  her. 

"  So  long  as  she  could  still  see  the  earth,  and  the 
sky,  and  the  sea  with  the  great  waves  moving,  and  the 
beams  of  the  sun,  and  still  thought  to  see  again  her 
mother,  and  the  race  of  the  ever-living  gods,  so  long 
hope  soothed  her,  in  the  midst  of  her  grief.  The 
peaks  of  the  hills  and  the  depths  of  the  sea  echoed 
her  cry.  And  the  mother  heard  it.  A  sharp  pain 
seized  her  at  the  heart ;  she  plucked  the  veil  from  her 


84  THE   MYTH   OF 

hair,  and  cast  down  the  blue  hood  from  her  shoulders, 
and  fled  forth  like  a  bird,  seeking  Persephone  over 
dry  land  and  sea.  But  neither  man  nor  god  would 
tell  her  the  truth ;  nor  did  any  bird  come  to  her  as 
a  sure  messenger. 

"  Nine  days  she  wandered  up  and  down  upon  the 
earth,  having  blazing  torches  in  her  hands ;  and,  in 
her  great  sorrow,  she  refused  to  taste  of  ambrosia,  or 
of  the  cup  of  the  sweet  nectar,  nor  washed  her  face. 
But  when  the  tenth  morning  came,  Hecate  met  her, 
having  a  light  in  her  hands.  But  Hecate  had  heard 
the  voice  only,  and  had  seen  no  one,  and  could  not 
tell  Demeter  who  had  borne  the  girl  away.  And 
Demeter  said  not  a  word,  but  fled  away  swiftly 
with  her,  having  the  blazing  torches  in  her  hands,  till 
they  came  to  the  Sun,  the  watchman  both  of  gods  and 
men;  and  the  goddess  questioned  him,  and  the  Sun 
told  her  the  whole  story. 

"  Then  a  more  terrible  grief  took  possession  of 
Demeter,  and,  in  her  anger  against  Zeus,  she  forsook 
the  assembly  of  the  gods  and  abode  among  men,  for 
a  long  time  veiling  her  beauty  under  a  worn  counte- 
nance, so  that  none  who  looked  upon  her  knew  her, 
until  she  came  to  the  house  of  Celeus,  who  was  then 
king  of  Eleusis.  In  her  sorrow,  she  sat  down  at  the 
wayside  by  the  virgin's  well,  where  the  people  of 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  85 

Eleusis  come  to  draw  water,  under  the  shadow  of  an 
olive-tree.  She  seemed  as  an  aged  woman  whose 
time  of  child-bearing  is  gone  by,  and  from  whom  the 
gifts  of  Aphrodite  have  been  withdrawn,  like  one  of 
the  hired  servants,  who  nurse  the  children  or  keep 
house,  in  kings'  palaces.  And  the  daughters  of  Celeus, 
four  of  them,  like  goddesses,  possessing  the  flower  of 
their  youth,  Callidice,  Cleisidice,  Demo,  and  Callithoe 
the  eldest  of  them,  coming  to  draw  water  that  they 
might  bear  it  in  their  brazen  pitchers  to  their  father's 
house,  saw  Demeter  and  knew  her  not.  The  gods  are 
hard  for  men  to  recognise. 

"  They  asked  her  kindly  what  she  did  there,  alone ; 
and  Demeter  answered,  dissemblingly,  that  she  was 
escaped  from  certain  pirates,  who  had  carried  her 
from  her  home  and  meant  to  sell  her  as  a  slave.  Then 
they  prayed  her  to  abide  there  while  they  returned  to 
the  palace,  to  ask  their  mother's  permission  to  bring 
her  home. 

"Demeter  bowed  her  head  in  assent;  and  they, 
having  filled  their  shining  vessels  with  water,  bore 
them  away,  rejoicing  in  their  beauty.  They  came 
quickly  to  their  father's  house,  and  told  their  mother 
what  they  had  seen  and  heard.  Their  mother  bade 
them  return,  and  hire  the  woman  for  a  great  price ; 
and  they,  like  the  hinds  or  young  heifers  leaping  in 


86  THE  MYTH  OF 

the  fields  in  spring,  fulfilled  with  the  pasture,  holding 
up  the  folds  of  their  raiment,  sped  along  the  hollow 
road-way,  their  hair,  in  colour  like  the  crocus,  floating 
about  their  shoulders  as  they  went.  They  found  the 
glorious  goddess  still  sitting  by  the  wayside,  unmoved. 
Then  they  led  her  to  their  father's  house ;  and  she, 
veiled  from  head  to  foot,  in  her  deep  grief,  followed 
them  on  the  way,  and  her  blue  robe  gathered  itself  as 
she  walked,  in  many  folds  about  her  feet.  They  came 
to  the  house,  and  passed  through  the  sunny  porch, 
where  their  mother,  Metaneira,  was  sitting  against  one 
of  the  pillars  of  the  roof,  having  a  young  child  in  her 
bosom.  They  ran  up  to  her;  but  Demeter  crossed 
the  threshold,  and,  as  she  passed  through,  her  head 
rose  and  touched  the  roof,  and  her  presence  filled  the 
doorway  with  a  divine  brightness. 

"  Still  they  did  not  wholly  recognise  her.  After  a 
time  she  was  made  to  smile.  She  refused  to  drink 
wine,  but  tasted  of  a  cup  mingled  of  water  and  barley, 
flavoured  with  mint.  It  happened  that  Metaneira  had 
lately  borne  a  child.  It  had  come  beyond  hope,  long 
after  its  elder  brethren,  and  was  the  object  of  a 
peculiar  tenderness  and  of  many  prayers  with  all. 
Demeter  consented  to  remain,  and  become  the  nurse 
of  this  child.  She  took  the  child  in  her  immortal 
hands,  and  placed  it  in  her  fragrant  bosom ;  and  the 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  87 

heart  of  the  mother  rejoiced.  Thus  Demeter  nursed 
Demophoon.  And  the  child .  grew  like  a  god,  neither 
sucking  the  breast,  nor  eating  bread ;  but  Demeter 
daily  anointed  it  with  ambrosia,  as  if  it  had  indeed 
been  the  child  of  a  god,  breathing  sweetly  over  it  and 
holding  it  in  her  bosom ;  and  at  nights,  when  she  lay 
alone  with  the  child,  she  would  hide  it  secretly  in  the 
red  strength  of  the  fire,  like  a  brand ;  for  her  heart 
yearned  towards  it,  and  she  would  fain  have  given  to 
it  immortal  youth. 

"  But  the  foolishness  of  his  mother  prevented  it. 
For  a  suspicion  growing  up  within  her,  she  awaited 
her  time,  and  one  night  peeped  in  upon  them,  and 
thereupon  cried  out  in  terror  at  what  she  saw.  And 
the  goddess  heard  her;  and  a  sudden  anger  seizing 
her,  she  plucked  the  child  from  the  fire  and  cast  it  on 
the  ground,  —  the  child  she  would  fain  have  made 
immortal,  but  who  must  now  share  the  common  des- 
tiny of  all  men,  though  some  inscrutable  grace  should 
still  be  his,  because  he  had  lain  for  a  while  on  the 
knees  and  in  the  bosom  of  the  goddess. 

"Then  Demeter  manifested  herself  openly.  She 
put  away  the  mask  of  old  age,  and  changed  her  form, 
and  the  spirit  of  beauty  breathed  about  her.  A  fra- 
grant odour  fell  from  her  raiment,  and  her  flesh  shone 
from  afar;  the  long  yellow  hair  descended  waving 


88  THE  MYTH  OF 

over  her  shoulders,  and  the  great  house  was  filled  as 
with  the  brightness  of  lightning.  She  passed  out 
through  the  halls ;  and  Metaneira  fell  to  the  earth, 
and  was  speechless  for  a  long  time,  and  remembered 
not  to  lift  the  child  from  the  ground.  But  the  sisters, 
hearing  its  piteous  cries,  leapt  from  their  beds  and 
ran  to  it.  Then  one  of  them  lifted  the  child  from 
the  earth,  and  wrapped  it  in  her  bosom,  and  another 
hastened  to  her  mother's  chamber  to  awake  her : 
they  came  round  the  child,  and  washed  away  the 
flecks  of  the  fire  from  its  panting  body,  and  kissed 
it  tenderly  all  about :  but  the  anguish  of  the  child 
ceased  not ;  the  arms  of  other  and  different  nurses 
were  about  to  enfold  it. 

"  So,  all  night,  trembling  with  fear,  they  sought  to 
propitiate  the  glorious  goddess;  and  in  the  morning 
they  told  all  to  their  father,  Celeus.  And  he,  accord- 
ing to  the  commands  of  the  goddess,  built  a  fair 
temple ;  and  all  the  people  assisted ;  and  when  it 
was  finished  every  man  departed  to  his  own  home. 
Then  Demeter  returned,  and  sat  down  within  the 
temple-walls,  and  remained  still  apart  from  the  com- 
pany of  the  gods,  alone  in  her  wasting  regret  for  her 
daughter  Persephone. 

"  And,  in  her  anger,  she  sent  upon  the  earth  a  year 
of  grievous  famine.  The  dry  seed  remained  hidden 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  89 

in  the  soil;  in  vain  the  oxen  drew  the  ploughshare 
through  the  furrows;  much  white  seed-corn  fell 
fruitless  on  the  earth,  and  the  whole  human  race  had 
like  to  have  perished,  and  the  gods  had  no  more 
service  of  men,  unless  Zeus  had  interfered.  First  he 
sent  Iris,  afterwards  all  the  gods,  one  by  one,  to  turn 
Demeter  from  her  anger;  but  none  was  able  to 
persuade  her;  she  heard  their  words  with  a  hard 
countenance,  and  vowed  by  no  means  to  return  to 
Olympus,  nor  to  yield  the  fruit  of  the  earth,  until 
her  eyes  had  seen  her  lost  daughter  again.  Then, 
last  of  all,  Zeus  sent  Hermes  into  the  kingdom  of 
the  dead,  to  persuade  Aidoneus  to  suffer  his  bride  to 
return  to  the  light  of  day.  And  Hermes  found  the 
king  at  home  in  his  palace,  sitting  on  a  couch,  beside 
the  shrinking  Persephone,  consumed  within  herself 
by  desire  for  her  mother.  A  doubtful  smile  passed 
over  the  face  of  Aidoneus ;  yet  he  obeyed  the  mes- 
sage, and  bade  Persephone  return ;  yet  praying  her  a 
little  to  have  gentle  thoughts  of  him,  nor  judge  him 
too  hardly,  who  was  also  an  immortal  god.  And  Per- 
sephone arose  up  quickly  in  great  joy ;  only,  ere  she 
departed,  he  caused  her  to  eat  a  morsel  of  sweet 
pomegranate,  designing  secretly  thereby,  that  she 
should  not  remain  always  upon  earth,  but  might  some 
time  return  to  him.  And  Aidoneus  yoked  the  horses 


90  THE  MYTH  OF 

to  his  chariot;  and  Persephone  ascended  into  it ;  and 
Hermes  took  the  reins  in  his  hands  and  drove  out 
through  the  infernal  halls ;  and  the  horses  ran  will- 
ingly ;  and  they  two  quickly  passed  over  the  ways  of 
that  long  journey,  neither  the  waters  of  the  sea,  nor 
of  the  rivers,  nor  the  deep  ravines  of  the  hills,  nor 
the  cliffs  of  the  shore,  resisting  them ;  till  at  last 
Hermes  placed  Persephone  before  the  door  of  the. 
temple  where  her  mother  was;  who,  seeing  her,  ran 
out  quickly  to  meet  her,  like  a  maenad  coming  down 
a  mountain-side,  dusky  with  woods. 

"So  they  spent  all  that  day  together  in  intimate 
communion,  having  many  things  to  hear  and  tell. 
Then  Zeus  sent  to  them  Rhea,  his  venerable  mother, 
the  oldest  of  divine  persons,  to  bring  them  back 
reconciled,  to  the  company  of  the  gods ;  and  he  or- 
dained that  Persephone  should  remain  two  parts  of 
the  year  with  her  mother,  and  one  third  part  only 
with  her  husband,  in  the  kingdom  of  the  dead.  So 
Demeter  suffered  the  earth  to  yield  its  fruits  once 
more,  and  the  land  was  suddenly  laden  with  leaves 
and  flowers  and  waving  corn.  Also  she  visited 
Triptolemus  and  the  other  princes  of  Eleusis,  and 
instructed  them  in  the  performance  of  her  sacred 
rites,  —  those  mysteries  of  which  no  tongue  may  speak. 
Only,  blessed  is  he  whose  eyes  have  seen  them;  his 
lot  after  death  is  not  as  the  lot  of  other  men  ! " 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  91 

In  the  story  of  Demeter,  as  in  all  Greek  myths,  we 
may  trace  the  action  of  three  different  influences, 
which  have  moulded  it  with  varying  effects,  in  three 
successive  phases  of  its  development.  There  is  first 
its  half-conscious,  instinctive,  or  mystical,  phase,  in 
which,  under  the  form  of  an  unwritten  legend,  living 
from  mouth  to  mouth,  and  with  details  changing  as  it 
passes  from  place  to  place,  there  lie  certain  primitive 
impressions  of  the  phenomena  of  the  natural  world.  We 
may  trace  it  next  in  its  conscious,  poetical  or  literary, 
phase,  in  which  the  poets  become  the  depositaries  of 
the  vague  instinctive  product  of  the  popular  imagina- 
tion, and  handle  it  with  a  purely  literary  interest,  fixing 
its  outlines,  and  simplifying  or  developing  its  situa- 
tions. Thirdly,  the  myth  passes  into  the  ethical  phase, 
in  which  the  persons  and  the  incidents  of  the  poetical 
narrative  are  realised  as  abstract  symbols,  because  in- 
tensely characteristic  examples,  of  moral  or  spiritual 
conditions.  Behind  the  adventures  of  the  stealing  of 
Persephone  and  the  wanderings  of  Demeter  in  search 
of  her,  as  we  find  them  in  the  Homeric  hymn,  we  may 
discern  the  confused  conception,  under  which  that 
early  age,  in  which  the  myths  were  first  created,  rep- 
resented to  itself  those  changes  in  physical  things,  that 
order  of  summer  and  winter,  of  which  it  had  no  scien- 
tific, or  systematic  explanation,  but  in  which,  never- 


92  THE  MYTH  OF 

theless,  it  divined  a  multitude  of  living  agencies, 
corresponding  to  those  ascertained  forces,  of  which 
our  colder  modern  science  tells  the  number  and  the 
names.  Demeter  —  Demeter  and  Persephone,  at 
first,  in  a  sort  of  confused  union  —  is  the  earth,  in  the 
fixed  order  of  its  annual  changes,  but  also  in  all  the 
accident  and  detail  of  the  growth  and  decay  of  its 
children.  Of  this  conception,  floating  loosely  in  the 
air,  the  poets  of  a  later  age  take  possession ;  they 
create  Demeter  and  Persephone  as  we  know  them  in 
art  and  poetry.  From  the  vague  and  fluctuating 
union,  in  which  together  they  had  represented  the 
earth  and  its  changes,  the  mother  and  the  daughter 
define  themselves  with  special  functions,  and  with 
fixed,  well-understood  relationships,  the  incidents  and 
emotions  of  which  soon  weave  themselves  into  a  pa- 
thetic story.  Lastly,  in  proportion  as  the  literary  or 
aesthetic  activity  completes  the  picture  or  the  poem, 
the  ethical  interest  makes  itself  felt.  These  strange 
persons  —  Demeter  and  Persephone,  —  these  marvel- 
lous incidents  —  the  translation  into  Hades,  the  seek- 
ing of  Demeter,  the  return  of  Persephone  to  her,  — 
lend  themselves  to  the  elevation  and  correction  of 
the  sentiments  of  sorrow  and  awe,  by  the  presentment 
to  the  senses  and  the  imagination  of  an  ideal  expres- 
sion of  them.  Demeter  cannot  but  seem  the  type  of 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  93 

divine  grief.  Persephone  is  the  goddess  of  death,  yet 
with  a  promise  of  life  to  come.  Those  three  phases, 
then,  which  are  more  or  less  discernible  in  all 
mythical  development,  and  constitute  a  natural  order 
in  it,  based  on  the  necessary  conditions  of  human 
apprehension,  are  fixed  more  plainly,  perhaps,  than 
in  any  other  passage  of  Greek  mythology  in  the  story 
of  Demeter.  And  as  the  Homeric  hymn  is  the  cen- 
tral expression  of  its  literary  or  poetical  phase,  so 
the  marble  remains,  of  which  I  shall  have  to  speak 
by  and  bye,  are  the  central  extant  illustration  of  what 
I  have  called  its  ethical  phase. 

Homer,  in  the  Iliad,  knows  Demeter,  but  only  as 
the  goddess  of  the  fields,  the  originator  and  patroness 
of  the  labours  of  the  countryman,  in  their  yearly  order. 
She  stands,  with  her  hair  yellow  like  the  ripe  corn,  at 
the  threshing-floor,  and  takes  her  share  in  the  toil,  the 
heap  of  grain  whitening,  as  the  flails,  moving  in  the 
wind,  disperse  the  chaff.  Out  in  the  fresh  fields,  she 
yields  to  the  embraces  of  lasion,  to  the  extreme  jeal- 
ousy of  Zeus,  who  slays  her  mortal  lover  with  light- 
ning. The  flowery  town  of  Pyrasus  —  the  wheat-town, 
—  an  ancient  place  in  Thessaly,  is  her  sacred  precinct. 
But  when  Homer  gives  a  list  of  the  orthodox  gods, 
her  name  is  not  mentioned. 

Homer,  in   the   Odyssey,  knows   Persephone  also, 


9+  THE  MYTH  OF 

but  not  as  Kore ;  only  as  the  queen  of  the  dead  — 
eiratvrj  Ilepo-e^ovi?  —  dreadful  Persephone,  the  goddess 
of  destruction  and  death,  according  to  the  apparent 
import  of  her  name.  She  accomplishes  men's  evil 
prayers ;  she  is  the  mistress  and  manager  of  men's 
shades,  to  which  she  can  dispense  a  little  more  or  less 
of  life,  dwelling  in  her  mouldering  palace  on  the  steep 
shore  of  the  Oceanus,  with  its  groves  of  barren  willows 
and  tall  poplars.  But  that  Homer  knew  her  as  the 
daughter  of  Demeter  there  are  no  signs ;  and  of  his 
knowledge  of  the  rape  of  Persephone  there  is  only  the 
faintest  sign,  —  he  names  Hades  by  the  golden  reins 
of  his  chariot,  and  his  beautiful  horses. 

The  main  theme,  then,  the  most  characteristic  pecul- 
iarities, of  the  story,  as  subsequently  developed,  are 
not  to  be  found,  expressly,  in  the  true  Homer.  We 
have  in  him,  on  the  one  hand,  Demeter,  as  the  per- 
fectly fresh  and  blithe  goddess  of  the  fields,  whose 
children,  if  she  has  them,  must  be  as  the  perfectly 
discreet  and  peaceful,  unravished  Kore  ;  on  the  other 
hand,  we  have  Persephone,  as  the  wholly  terrible  god- 
dess of  death,  who  brings  to  Ulysses  the  querulous 
shadows  of  the  dead,  and  has  the  head  of  the  gorgon 
Medusa  in  her  keeping.  And  it  is  only  when  these 
two  contrasted  images  have  been  brought  into  inti- 
mate relationship,  only  when  Kore  and  Persephone 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  95 

have  been   identified,  that   the  deeper  mythology  of 
Demeter  begins. 

This  combination  has  taken  place  in  Hesiod ;  and 
in  three  lines  of  the  Theogony  we  find  the  stealing  of 
Persephone  by  Aidoneus,1  —  one  of  those  things  in 
Hesiod,  perhaps,  which  are  really  older  than  Homer. 
Hesiod  has  been  called  the  poet  of  helots,  and  is 
thought  to  have  preserved  some  of  the  traditions  of 
those  earlier  inhabitants  of  Greece  who  had  become 
,  a  kind  of  serfs ;  and  in  a  certain  shadowiness  in  his 
conceptions  of  the  gods,  contrasting  with  the  concrete 
and  heroic  forms  of  the  gods  of  Homer,  we  may  per- 
haps trace  something  of  the  quiet  unspoken  brood- 
ing of  a  subdued  people  —  of  that  silently  dreaming 
temper  to  which  the  story  of  Persephone  properly 
belongs.  However  this  may  be,  it  is  in  Hesiod  that 
the  two  images,  unassociated  in  Homer  —  the  goddess 
of  summer  and  the  goddess  of  death,  Kore  and  Per- 
sephone —  are  identified  with  much  significance ;  and 
that  strange,  dual  being  makes  her  first  appearance, 
whose  latent  capabilities  the  poets  afterwards  devel- 
oped ;  among  the  rest,  a  peculiar  blending  of  those 
two  contrasted  aspects,  full  of  purpose  for  the  duly 

1  Theogony,  912-914: 

Avrkp  6  AiJ/iTjrpos  iro\v<p6p{lr)s  is  X^x°*  ^Ocv, 
•if  r^/ce  HepffeQbvTjv  \fVK&\evov,  f/v  'Ai'5wvet)j 
qpircurev  ijs  irapa.  /j.T)rp6s  •  tdwKe  dt  uriritra  Zew. 


96  THE  MYTH   OF 

chastened  intelligence  ;  death,  resurrection,  rejuvenes- 
cence. —  Awake,  and  sing,  ye  that  dwell  in  the  dust ! 
Modern  science  explains  the  changes  of  the  natural 
world  by  the  hypothesis  of  certain  unconscious  forces ; 
and  the  sum  of  these  forces,  in  their  combined  action, 
constitutes  the  scientific  conception  of  nature.  But, 
side  by  side  with  the  growth  of  this  more  mechanical 
conception,  an  older  and  more  spiritual,  Platonic, 
philosophy  has  always  maintained  itself,  a  philosophy 
more  of  instinct  than  of  the  understanding,  the  mental 
starting-point  of  which  is  not  an  observed  sequence  of 
outward  phenomena,  but  some  such  feeling  as  most  of 
us  have  on  the  first  warmer  days  in  spring,  when  we 
seem  to  feel  the  genial  processes  of  nature  actually  at 
work ;  as  if  just  below  the  mould,  and  in  the  hard 
wood  of  the  trees,  there  were  really  circulating  some 
spirit  of  life,  akin  to  that  which  makes  its  energies 
felt  within  ourselves.  Starting  with  a  hundred  in- 
stincts such  as  this,  that  older  unmechanical,  spiritual, 
or  Platonic,  philosophy  envisages  nature  rather  as  the 
unity  of  a  living  spirit  or  person,  revealing  itself  in 
various  degrees  to  the  kindred  spirit  of  the  observer, 
than  as  a  system  of  mechanical  forces.  Such  a  phi- 
losophy is  a  systematised  form  of  that  sort  of  poetry 
(we  may  study  it,  for  instance,  either  in  Shelley  or  in 
Wordsworth),  which  also  has  its  fancies  of  a  spirit 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  97 

of  the  earth,  or  of  the  sky,  —  a  personal  intelligence 
abiding  in  them,  the  existence  of  which  is  assumed 
in  every  suggestion  such  poetry  makes  to  us  of 
a  sympathy  between  the  ways  and  aspects  of  outward 
nature  and  the  moods  of  men.  And  what  stood  to 
the  primitive  intelligence  in  place  of  such  meta- 
physical conceptions  were  those  cosmical  stories  or 
myths,  such  as  this  of  Demeter  and  Persephone, 
which,  springing  up  spontaneously  in  many  minds, 
came  at  last  to  represent  to  them,  in  a  certain  number 
of  sensibly  realised  images,  all  they  knew,  felt,  or 
fancied,  of  the  natural  world  about  them.  The  sky 
in  its  unity  and  its  variety,  —  the  sea  in  its  unity  and 
its  variety,  —  mirrored  themselves  respectively  in  these 
simple,  but  profoundly  impressible  spirits,  as  Zeus,  as 
Glaucus  or  Poseidon.  And  a  large  part  of  their 
experience  —  all,  that  is,  that  related  to  the  earth  in 
its  changes,  the  growth  and  decay  of  all  things  born 
of  it  —  was  covered  by  the  story  of  Demeter,  the  myth 
of  the  earth  as  a  mother.  They  thought  of  Demeter 
as  the  old  Germans  thought  of  Hertha,  or  the  later 
Greeks  of  Pan,  as  the  Egyptians  thought  of  Isis,  the 
land  of  the  Nile,  made  green  by  the  streams  of 
Osiris,  for  whose  coming  Isis  longs,  as  Demeter  for 
Persephone ;  thus  naming  together  in  her  all  their 
fluctuating  thoughts,  impressions,  suspicions,  of  the 


98  THE  MYTH  OF 

earth  and  its  appearances,  their  whole  complex  divi- 
nation of  a  mysterious  life,  a  perpetual  working,  a 
continuous  act  of  conception  there.  Or  they  thought 
of  the  many-coloured  earth  as  the  garment  of  De- 
meter,  as  the  great  modern  pantheist  poet  speaks  of 
it  as  the  "garment  of  God."  Its  brooding  fertility; 
the  spring  flowers  breaking  from  its  surface,  the  thinly 
disguised  unhealthfulness  of  their  heavy  perfume,  and 
of  their  chosen  places  of  growth ;  the  delicate,  femi- 
nine, Proserpina-like  motions  of  all  growing  things ;  its 
fruit,  full  of  drowsy  and  poisonous,  or  fresh,  reviving 
juices ;  its  sinister  caprices  also,  its  droughts  and 
sudden  volcanic  heats ;  the  long  delays  of  spring ;  its 
dumb  sleep,  so  suddenly  flung  away ;  the  sadness 
which  insinuates  itself  into  its  languid  luxuriance ; 
all  this  grouped  itself  round  the  persons  of  Demeter 
and  her  circle.  They  could  turn  always  to  her,  from 
the  actual  earth  itself,  in  aweful  yet  hopeful  prayer, 
and  a  devout  personal  gratitude,  and  explain  it 
through  her,  in  its  sorrow  and  its  promise,  its  dark- 
ness and  its  helpfulness  to  man. 

The  personification  of  abstract  ideas  by  modern 
painters  or  sculptors,  of  wealth,  of  commerce,  of 
health,  for  instance,  shocks,  in  most  cases,  the  aes- 
thetic sense,  as  something  conventional  or  rhetorical, 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  99 

as  a  mere  transparent  allegory,  or  figure  of  speech, 
which  could  please  almost  no  one.  On  the  other 
hand,  such  symbolical  representations,  under  the  form 
of  human  persons,  as  Giotto's  Virtues  and  Vices  at 
Padua,  or  his  Saint  Poverty  at  Assisi,  or  the  series 
of  the  planets  in  certain  early  Italian  engravings,  are 
profoundly  poetical  and  impressive.  They  seem  to 
be  something  more  than  mere  symbolism,  and  to  be 
connected  with  some  peculiarly  sympathetic  penetra- 
tion, on  the  part  of  the  artist,  into  the  subjects  he 
intended  to  depict.  Symbolism  intense  as  this,  is 
the  creation  of  a  special  temper,  in  which  a  certain 
simplicity,  taking  all  things  literally,  au  pied  de  la 
lettre,  is  united  to  a  vivid  pre -occupation  with  the 
aesthetic  beauty  of  the  image  itself,  the  figtired  side 
of  figurative  expression,  the  form  of  the  metaphor. 
When  it  is  said,  "  Out  of  his  mouth  goeth  a  sharp 
sword,"  that  temper  is  ready  to  deal  directly  and 
boldly  with  that  difficult  image,  like  that  old  designer 
of  the  fourteenth  century,  who  has  depicted  this,  and 
other  images  of  the  Apocalypse,  in  a  coloured  window 
at  Bourges.  Such  symbolism  cares  a  great  deal  for 
the  hair  of  Temperance,  discreetly  bound,  for  some 
subtler  likeness  to  the  colour  of  the  sky  in  the  girdle 
of  Hope,  for  the  inwoven  flames  in  the  red  garment  x>f 
Charity.  And  what  was  specially  peculiar  to  the 


100  THE  MYTH  OF 

temper  of  the  old  Florentine  painter,  Giotto,  to  the 
temper  of  his  age  in  general,  doubtless,  more  than  to 
that  of  ours,  was  the  persistent  and  universal  mood  of 
the  age  in  which  the  story  of  De  meter  and  Persephone 
was  first  created.  If  some  painter  of  our  own  time 
has  conceived  the  image  of  The  Day  so  intensely, 
that  we  hardly  think  of  distinguishing  between  the 
image,  with  its  girdle  of  dissolving  morning  mist,  and 
the  meaning  of  the  image  ;  if  William  Blake,  to  our 
so  great  delight,  makes  the  morning  stars  literally 
"  sing  together  "  —  these  fruits  of  individual  genius  are 
in  part  also  a  "  survival "  from  a  different  age,  with 
the  whole  mood  of  which  this  mode  of  expression  was 
more  congruous  than  it  is  with  ours.  But  there  are 
traces  of  the  old  temper  in  the  man  of  to-day  also ; 
and  through  these  we  can  understand  that  earlier 
time  —  a  very  poetical  time,  with  the  more  highly 
gifted  peoples  —  in  which  every  impression  men  re- 
ceived of  the  action  of  powers  without  or  within  them 
suggested  to  them  the  presence  of  a  soul  or  will,  like 
their  own  —  a  person,  with  a  living  spirit,  and  senses, 
and  hands,  and  feet;  which,  when  it  talked  of  the 
return  of  Kore  to  Demeter,  or  the  marriage  of  Zeus  and 
Here,  was  not  using  rhetorical  language,  but  yielding 
to  a  real  illusion ;  to  which  the  voice  of  man  "  was 
really  a  stream,  beauty  an  effluence,  death  a  mist." 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  101. 

The  gods  of  Greek  mythology  overlap  each  other ; 
they  are  confused  or  connected  with  each  other, 
lightly  or  deeply,  as  the  case  may  be,  and  sometimes 
have  their  doubles,  at  first  sight  as  in  a  troubled 
dream,  yet  never,  when  we  examine  each  detail  more 
closely,  without  a  certain  truth  to  human  reason.  It 
is  only  in  a  limited  sense  that  it  is  possible  to  lift,  and 
examine  by  itself,  one  thread  of  the  network  of  story 
and  imagery,  which,  in  a  certain  age  of  civilisation, 
wove  itself  over  every  detail  of  life  and  thought,  over 
every  name  in  the  past,  and  almost  every  place  in 
Greece.  The  story  of  Demeter,  then,  was  the  work 
of  no  single  author  or  place  or  time ;  the  poet  of  its 
first  phase  was  no  single  person,  but  the  whole  con- 
sciousness of  an  age,  though  an  age  doubtless  with 
its  differences  of  more  or  less  imaginative  individual 
minds  —  with  one,  here  or  there,  eminent,  though  but 
by  a  little,  above  a  merely  receptive  majority,  the 
spokesman  of  a  universal,  though  faintly-felt  prepos- 
session, attaching  the  errant  fancies  of  the  people 
around  him  to  definite  names  and  images.  The  myth 
grew  up  gradually,  and  at  many  distant  places,  in 
many  minds,  independent  of  each  other,  but  dealing 
in  a  common  temper  with  certain  elements  and 
aspects  of  the  natural  world,  as  one  here,  and  another 
there,  seemed  to  catch  in  that  incident  or  detail  which 


102  THE   MYTH   OF 

flashed  more  incisively  than  others  on  the  inward  eye, 
some  influence,  or  feature,  or  characteristic  of  the 
great  mother.  The  various  epithets  of  Demeter,  the 
local  variations  of  her  story,  its  incompatible  incidents, 
bear  witness  to  the  manner  of  its  generation.  They 
illustrate  that  indefiniteness  which  is  characteristic  of 
Greek  mythology,  a  theology  with  no  central  authority, 
no  link  on  historic  time,  liable  from  the  first  to  an 
unobserved  transformation.  They  indicate  the  various, 
far-distant  spots  from  which  the  visible  body  of  the 
goddess  slowly  collected  its  constituents,  and  came  at 
last  to  have  a  well-defined  existence  in  the  popular 
mind.  In  this  sense,  Demeter  appears  to  one  in  her 
anger,  sullenly  withholding  the  fruits  of  the  earth,  to 
another  in  her  pride  of  Persephone,  to  another  in  her 
grateful  gift  of  the  arts  of  agriculture  to  man  ;  at  last  only, 
is  there  a  general  recognition  of  a  clearly- arrested  out- 
line, a  tangible  embodiment,  which  has  solidified  itself 
in  the  imagination  of  the  people,  they  know  not  how. 

The  worship  of  Demeter  belongs  to  that  older 
religion,  nearer  to  the  earth,  which  some  have  thought 
they  could  discern,  behind  the  more  definitely  national 
mythology  of  Homer.  She  is  the  goddess  of  dark 
caves,  and  is  not  wholly  free  from  monstrous  form. 
She  gave  men  the  first  fig  in  one  place,  the  first  poppy 


DEMETER   AND   PERSEPHONE  103 

in  another ;  in  another,  she  first  taught  the  old  Titans 
to  mow.  She  is  the  mother  of  the  vine  also ;  and 
the  assumed  name  by  which  she  called  herself  in  her 
wanderings,  is  Dos  —  a  gift ;  the  crane,  as  the  har- 
binger of  rain,  is  her  messenger  among  the  birds. 
She  knows  the  magic  powers  of  certain  plants,  cut 
from  her  bosom,  to  bane  or  bless ;  and,  under  one  of 
her  epithets,  herself  presides  over  the  springs,  as  also 
coming  from  the  secret  places  of  the  earth.  She  is 
the  goddess,  then,  at  first,  of  the  fertility  of  the  earth 
in  its  wildness ;  and  so  far,  her  attributes  are  to  some 
degree  confused  with  those  of  the  Thessalian  Gaia 
and  the  Phrygian  Cybele.  Afterwards,  and  it  is  now 
that  her  most  characteristic  attributes  begin  to  con- 
centrate themselves,  she  separates  herself  from  these 
confused  relationships,  as  specially  the  goddess  of 
agriculture,  of  the  fertility  of  the  earth  when  furthered 
by  human  skill.  She  is  the  preserver  of  the  seed 
sown  in  hope,  under  many  epithets  derived  from  the 
incidents  of  vegetation,  as  the  simple  countryman 
names  her,  out  of  a  mind  full  of  the  various  expe- 
riences of  his  little  garden  or  farm.  She  is  the  most 
definite  embodiment  of  all  those  fluctuating  mystical 
instincts,  of  which  Gaia,1  the  mother  of  the  earth's 

1  In  the  Homeric  hymn,  pre-eminently,  of  the  flower  which  grew 
up  for  the  first  time,  to  snare  the  footsteps  of  Kore,  the  fair  but 
deadly  Narcissus,  the  flower  of  vdpuri,  the  numbness  of  death. 


104  THE  MYTH   OF 

gloomier  offspring,  is  a  vaguer  and  mistier  one.  There 
is  nothing  of  the  confused  outline,  the  mere  shadow- 
mess  of  mystical  dreaming,  in  this  most  concrete 
human  figure.  No  nation,  less  aesthetically  gifted 
than  the  Greeks,  could  have  thus  lightly  thrown  its 
mystical  surmise  and  divination  into  images  so  clear 
and  idyllic  as  those  of  the  solemn  goddess  of  the 
country,  in  whom  the  characteristics  of  the  mother 
are  expressed  with  so  much  tenderness,  and  the  "  beau- 
teous head  "  of  Kore,  then  so  fresh  and  peaceful. 

In  this  phase,  then,  the  story  of  Demeter  appears 
as  the  peculiar  creation  of  country-people  of  a  high 
impressibility,  dreaming  over  their  work  in  spring  or 
autumn,  half  consciously  touched  by  a  sense  of  i*s 
sacredness,  and  a  sort  of  mystery  about  it.  For  there 
is  much  in  the  life  of  the  farm  everywhere  which 
gives  to  persons  of  any  seriousness  of  disposition, 
special  opportunity  for  grave  and  gentle  thoughts. 
The  temper  of  people  engaged  in  the  occupations 
of  country  life,  so  permanent,  so  "  near  to  nature,"  is 
at  all  times  alike ;  and  the  habitual  solemnity  of 
thought  and  expression  which  Wordsworth  found  in 
the  peasants  of  Cumberland,  and  the  painter  Francois 
Millet  in  the  peasants  of  "Brittany,  may  well  have  had 
its  prototype  in  early  Greece.  And  so,  even  before 
the  development,  by  the  poets,  of  their  aweful  and 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  105 

passionate  story,  Demeter  and  Persephone  seem  to 
have  been  pre-eminently  the  venerable,  or  aweful, 
goddesses.  Demeter  haunts  the  fields  in  spring,  when 
the  young  lambs  are  dropped ;  she  visits  the  barns  in 
autumn ;  she  takes  part  in  mowing  and  binding  up  the 
com,  and  is  the  goddess  of  sheaves.  She  presides 
over  all  the  pleasant,  significant  details  of  the  farm, 
the  threshing-floor  and  the  full  granary,  and  stands 
beside  the  woman  baking  bread  at  the  oven.  With 
these  fancies  are  connected  certain  simple  rites ;  the 
half-understood  local  observance,  and  the  half-be- 
lieved local  legend,  reacting  capriciously  on  each 
other.  They  leave  her  a  fragment  of  bread  and  a 
morsel  of  meat,  at  the  cross-roads,  to  take  on  her 
journey;  and  perhaps  some  real  Demeter  carries  them 
away,  as  she  wanders  through  the  country.  The  inci- 
dents of  their  yearly  labour  become  to  them  acts  of 
worship;  they  seek  her  blessing  through  many  ex- 
pressive names,  and  almost  catch  sight  of  her,  at  dawn 
or  evening,  in  the  nooks  of  the  fragrant  fields.  She 
lays  a  finger  on  the  grass  at  the  road-side,  and  some 
new  flower  comes  up.  All  the  picturesque  implements 
of  country  life  are  hers ;  the  poppy  also,  emblem  of  an 
inexhaustible  fertility,  and  full  of  mysterious  juices  for 
the  alleviation  of  pain.  The  countrywoman  who  puts 
her  child  to  sleep  in  the  great,  cradle-like  basket  for 


106  THE  MYTH   OF 

winnowing  the  corn,  remembers  Demeter  Courotrophos, 
the  mother  of  corn  and  children  alike,  and  makes  it 
a  little  coat  out  of  the  dress  worn  by  its  father  at  his 
initiation  into  her  mysteries.  Yet  she  is  an  angry 
goddess  too,  sometimes  —  Demeter  Erinnys,  the  gob- 
lin of  the  neighbourhood,  haunting  its  shadowy  places. 
She  lies  on  the  ground  out  of  doors  on  summer  nights, 
and  becomes  wet  with  the  dew.  She  grows  young 
again  every  spring,  yet  is  of  great  age,  the  wrinkled 
woman  of  the  Homeric  hymn,  who  becomes  the  nurse 
of  Demophoon.  Other  lighter,  errant  stories  nest 
themselves,  as  time  goes  on,  within  the  greater.  The 
water-newt,  which  repels  the  lips  of  the  traveller  who 
stoops  to  drink,  is  a  certain  urchin,  Abas,  who  spoiled 
by  his  mockery  the  pleasure  of  the  thirsting  goddess, 
as  she  drank  once  of  a  wayside  spring  in  her  wander- 
ings. The  night-owl  is  the  transformed  Ascalabus, 
who  alone  had  seen  Persephone  eat  that  morsel  of 
pomegranate,  in  the  garden  of  Aidoneus.  The  bitter 
wild  mint  was  once  a  girl,  who  for  a  moment  had 
made  her  jealous,  in  Hades. 

The  episode  of  Triptolemus,  to  whom  Demeter 
imparts  the  mysteries  of  the  plough,  like  the  details 
of  some  sacred  rite,  that  he  may  bear  them  abroad  to 
all  people,  embodies,  in  connexion  with  her,  another 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  107 

group  of  the  circumstances  of  country  life.  As  with 
all  fhe  other  episodes  of  the  story,  there  are  here 
also  local  variations,  traditions  of  various  favourites  of 
the  goddess  at  different  places,  of  whom  grammarians 
can  tell  us,  finally  obscured  behind  the  greater  fame 
of  Triptolemus  of  Eleusis.  One  might  fancy,  at 
first,  that  Triptolemus  was  a  quite  Boeotian  divinity, 
of  the  ploughshare.  Yet  we  know  that  the  thoughts 
of  the  Greeks  concerning  the  culture  of  the  earth 
from  which  they  came,  were  most  often  noble  ones ; 
and  if  we  examine  carefully  the  works  of  ancient 
art  which  represent  him,  the  second  thought  will 
suggest  itself,  that  there  was  nothing  clumsy  or  coarse 
about  this  patron  of  the  plough  —  something,  rather,  of 
the  movement  of  delicate  wind  or  fire,  about  him  and 
his  chariot.  And  this  finer  character  is  explained,  if, 
as  we  are  justified  in  doing,  we  bring  him  into  closest 
connexion  with  that  episode,  so  full  of  a  strange 
mysticism,  of  the  Nursing  of  Demophoon,  in  the 
Homeric  hymn.  For,  according  to  some  traditions, 
none  other  than  Triptolemus  himself  was  the  subject 
of  that  mysterious  experiment,  in  which  Demeter  laid 
the  child  nightly  in  the  red  heat  of  the  fire ;  and 
he  lives  afterwards,  not  immortal  indeed,  not  wholly 
divine,  yet,  as  Shakspere  says,  a  "nimble  spirit," 
feeling  little  of  the  weight  of  the  material  world  about 


108  THE   MYTH   OF 

him  —  the  element  of  winged  fire  in  the  clay.  The 
delicate,  fresh  farm-lad  we  may  still  actually  %  see 
sometimes,  like  a  graceful  field-flower  among  the  corn, 
becomes,  in  the  sacred  legend  of  agriculture,  a  king's 
son ;  and  then,  the  fire  having  searched  out  from  him 
the  grosser  elements  on  that  famous  night,  all  com- 
pact now  of  spirit,  a  priest  also,  administering  the 
gifts  of  Demeter  to  all  the  earth.  Certainly,  the 
extant  works  of  art  which  represent  him,  gems  or 
vase-paintings,  conform  truly  enough  to  this  ideal  of 
a  "  nimble  spirit,"  though  he  wears  the  broad  country 
hat,  which  Hermes  also  wears,  going  swiftly,  half  on 
the  airy,  mercurial  wheels  of  his  farm  instrument, 
harrow  or  plough  —  half  on  wings  of  serpents  —  the 
worm,  symbolical  of  the  soil,  but  winged,  as  sending 
up  the  dust  committed  to  it,  after  subtle  firing,  in 
colours  and  odours  of  fruit  and  flowers.  It  is  an  alto- 
gether sacred  character,  again,  that  he  assumes  in 
another  precious  work,  of  the  severer  period  of  Greek 
art,  lately  discovered  at  Eleusis,  and  now  preserved  in 
the  museum  of  Athens,  a  singularly  refined  bas-relief, 
in  which  he  stands,  a  firm  and  serious  youth,  between 
Demeter  and  Persephone,  who  places  her  hand  as 
with  some  sacred  influence,  and  consecrating  gesture, 
upon  him. 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  109 

But  the  house  of  the  prudent  countryman  will  be, 
of  course,  a  place  of  honest  manners ;  and  Demeter 
Thesmophoros  is  the  guardian  of  married  life,  the  deity 
of  the  discretion  of  wives.  She  is  therefore  the 
founder  of  civilised  order.  The  peaceful  homes  of 
men,  scattered  about  the  land,  in  their  security  — 
Demeter  represents  these  fruits  of  the  earth  also,  not 
without  a  suggestion  of  the  white  cities,  which  shine 
upon  the  hills  above  the  waving  fields  of  corn,  seats  of 
justice  and  of  true  kingship.  She  is  also  in  a  certain 
sense  the  patron  of  travellers,  having,  in  her  long 
wanderings  after  Persephone,  recorded  and  handed 
down  those  omens,  caught  from  little  things  —  the 
birds  which  crossed  her  path,  the  persons  who  met 
her  on  the  way,  the  words  they  said,  the  things  they 
carried  in  their  hands,  eivdSia  o-v/x/JoAa —  by  noting 
which,  men  bring  their  journeys  to  a  successful  end ; 
so  that  the  simple  countryman  may  pass  securely  on 
his  way ;  and  is  led  by  signs  from  the  goddess  herself, 
when  he  travels  far  to  visit  her,  at  Hermione  or 
Eleusis. 

So  far  the  attributes  of  Demeter  and  Kore  are 
similar.  In  the  mythical  conception,  as  in  the  relig- 
ious acts  connected  with  it,  the  mother  and  the 
daughter  are  almost  interchangeable ;  they  are  the 
two  goddesses,  the  twin-named.  Gradually,  the  office 


110  THE   MYTH   OF 

of  Persephone  is  developed,  defines  itself;  functions 
distinct  from  those  of  Demeter  are  attributed  to  her. 
Hitherto,  always  at  the  side  of  Demeter  and  sharing 
her  worship,  she  now  appears  detached  from  her, 
going  and  coming,  on  her  mysterious  business.  A  third 
part  of  the  year  she  abides  in  darkness ;  she  comes  up 
in  the  spring;  and  every  autumn,  when  the  country- 
man sows  his  seed  in  the  earth,  she  descends  thither 
again,  and  the  world  of  the  dead  lies  open,  spring  and 
autumn,  to  let  her  in  and  out.  Persephone,  then,  is 
the  summer-time,  and,  in  this  sense,  a  daughter  of  the 
earth  ;  but  the  summer  as  bringing  winter ;  the  flowery 
splendour  and  consummated  glory  of  the  year,  as 
thereafter  immediately  beginning  to  draw  near  to  its 
end,  as  the  first  yellow  leaf  crosses  it,  in  the  first 
severer  wind.  She  is  the  last  day  of  spring,  or  the  first 
day  of  autumn,  in  the  threefold  division  of  the  Greek 
year.  Her  story  is,  indeed,  but  the  story,  in  an 
intenser  form,  of  Adonis,  of  Hyacinth,  of  Adrastus  — 
the  king's  blooming  son,  fated,  in  the  story  of  He- 
rodotus, to  be  wounded  to  death  with  an  iron  spear  — 
of  Linus,  a  fair  child  who  is  torn  to  pieces  by  hounds 
every  spring-time  —  of  the  English  Sleeping  Beauty. 
From  being  the  goddess  of  summer  and  the  flowers, 
she  becomes  the  goddess  of  night  and  sleep  and  death, 
confuseable  with  Hecate,  the  goddess  of  midnight 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  111 


terrors,  —  Kopy  appyros,  the  mother  of  the  Erinnyes, 
who  appeared  to  Pindar,  to  warn  him  of  his  approach- 
ing death,  upbraiding  him  because  he  had  made  no 
hymn  in  her  praise,  which  swan's  song  he  thereupon 
began,  but  finished  with  her.  She  is  a  twofold 
goddess,  therefore,  according  as  one  or  the  other  of 
these  two  contrasted  aspects  of  her  nature  is  seized, 
respectively.  A  duality,  an  inherent  opposition  in 
the  very  conception  of  Persephone,  runs  all  through 
her  story,  and  is  part  of  her  ghostly  power.  There  is 
ever  something  in  her  of  a  divided  or  ambiguous 
identity:  hence  the  many  euphemisms  of  later 
language  concerning  her. 

The  "  worship  of  sorrow,"  as  Goethe  called  it,  is 
sometimes  supposed  to  have  had  almost  no  place  in 
the  religion  of  the  Greeks.  Their  religion  has  been 
represented  as  a  religion  of  mere  cheerfulness,  the 
worship  by  an  untroubled,  unreflecting  humanity, 

conscious  of  no  deeper  needs,  of  the  embodiments 

• 

of  its  own  joyous  activity.  It  helped  to  hide  out  of 
their  sight  those  traces  of  decay  and  weariness,  of 
which  the  Greeks  were  constitutionally  shy,  to  keep 
them  from  peeping  too  curiously  into  certain  shadowy 
places,  appropriate  enough  to  the  gloomy  imagina- 
tion of  the  middle  age  ;  and  it  hardly  proposed  to 
itself  to  give  consolation  to  people  who,  in  truth,  were 


112  THE  MYTH  OF 

never  "  sick  or  sorry."  But  this  familiar  view  of  Greek 
religion  is  based  on  a  consideration  of  a  part  only  of 
what  is  known  concerning  it,  and  really  involves  a 
misconception,  akin  to  that  which  under-estimates  the 
influence  of  the  romantic  spirit  generally,  in  Greek 
poetry  and  art ;  as  if  Greek  art  had  dealt  exclusively 
with  human  nature  in  its  sanity,  suppressing  all  motives 
of  strangeness,  all  the  beauty  which  is  born  of  difficulty, 
permitting  nothing  but  an  Olympian,  though  perhaps 
somewhat  wearisome  calm.  In  effect,  such  a  concep- 
tion of  Greek  art  and  poetry  leaves  in  the  central  ex- 
pressions of  Greek  culture  none  but  negative  qualities ; 
and  the  legend  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  perhaps 
the  most  popular  of  all  Greek  legends,  is  sufficient  to 
show  that  the  "  worship  of  sorrow  "  was  not  without 
its  function  in  Greek  religion ;  their  legend  is  a  legend 
made  by  and  for  sorrowful,  wistful,  anxious  people ; 
while  the  most  important  artistic  monuments  of  that 
legend  sufficiently  prove  that  the  Romantic  spirit  was 
really  at  work  in  the  minds  of  Greek  artists,  extracting 
by  a  kind  of  subtle  alchemy,  a  beauty,  not  without  the 
elements  of  tranquillity,  of  dignity  and  order,  out  of 
a  matter,  at  first  sight  painful  and  strange. 

The  student  of  origins,  as  French  critics  say,  of  the 
earliest  stages  of  art  and  poetry,  must  be  content  to 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  113 

follow  faint  traces ;  and  in  what  has  been  here  said, 
much  may  seem  to  have  been  made  of  little,  with  too 
much  completion,  by  a  general  framework  or  setting, 
of  what  after  all  are  but  doubtful  or  fragmentary  indi- 
cations. Yet  there  is  a  certain  cynicism  too,  in  that 
over-positive  temper,  which  is  so  jealous  of  our  catch- 
ing any  resemblance  in  the  earlier  world  to  the  thoughts 
that  really  occupy  our  own  minds,  and  which,  in  its 
estimate  of  the  actual  fragments  of  antiquity,  is  con- 
tent to  find  no  seal  of  human  intelligence  upon  them. 
Slight  indeed  in  themselves,  these  fragmentary  indica- 
tions become  suggestive  of  much,  when  viewed  in 
the  light  of  such  general  evidence  about  the  human 
imagination  as  is  afforded  by  the  theory  of  "  com- 
parative mythology,"  or  what  is  called  the  theory  of 
"  animism."  Only,  in  the  application  of  these  theories, 
the  student  of  Greek  religion  must  never  forget  that, 
after  all,  it  is  with  poetry,  not  with  systematic  theo- 
logical belief  or  dogma,  that  he  has  to  do.  As  regards 
this  story  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  what  we  actually 
possess  is  some  actual  fragments  of  poetry,  some  actual 
fragments  of  sculpture  ;  and  with  a  curiosity,  justified 
by  the  direct  aesthetic  beauty  of  these  fragments,  we 
feel  our  way  backwards  to  that  engaging  picture  of  the 
poet-people,  with  which  the  ingenuity  of  modern  theory 
has  filled  the  void  in  our  knowledge.  The  abstract 


114  THE   MYTH   OF 

poet  of  that  first  period  of  mythology,  creating  in  this 
wholly  impersonal,  intensely  spiritual  way,  —  the  ab- 
stract spirit  of  poetry  itself,  rises  before  the  mind; 
and,  in  speaking  of  this  poetical  age,  we  must  take 
heed,  before  all  things,  in  no  sense  to  misconstrue  the 
poets. 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  115 


II. 

The  stories  of  the  Greek  mythology,  like  other 
things  which  belong  to  no  man,  and  for  which  no  one 
in  particular  is  responsible,  had  their  fortunes.  In 
that  world  of  floating  fancies  there  was  a  struggle  for 
life ;  there  were  myths  which  never  emerged  from 
that  first  stage  of  popular  conception,  or  were  absorbed 
by  stronger  competitors,  because,  as  some  true  heroes 
have  done,  they  lacked  the  sacred  poet  or  prophet, 
and  were  never  remodelled  by  literature  ;  while,  out  of 
the  myth  of  Demeter,  under  the  careful  conduct  of 
poetry  and  art,  came  the  little  pictures,  the  idylls, 
of  the  Homeric  hymn,  and  the  gracious  imagery  of 
Praxiteles.  The  myth  has  now  entered  its  second 
or  poetical  phase,  then,  in  which  more  definite  fancies 
are  grouped  about  the  primitive  stock,  in  a  conscious 
literary  temper,  and  the  whole  interest  settles  round 
the  images  of  the  beautiful  girl  going  down  into  the 
darkness,  and  the  weary  woman  who  seeks  her  lost 
daughter  —  divine  persons,  then  sincerely  believed  in 
by  the  majority  of  the  Greeks.  The  Homeric  hymn 
is  the  central  monument  of  this  second  phase.  In  it, 
the  changes  of  the  natural  year  have  become  a  per- 


116  THE   MYTH   OF 

sonal  history,  a  story  of  human  affection  and  sorrow, 
yet  with  a  far-reaching  religious  significance  also,  of 
which  the  mere  earthly  spring  and  autumn  are  but  an 
analogy ;  and  in  the  development  of  this  human  ele- 
ment, the  writer  of  the  hymn  sometimes  displays  a 
genuine  power  of  pathetic  expression.  The  whole 
episode  of  the  fostering  of  Demophoon,  in  which  ovef 
the  body  of  the  dying  child  human  longing  and  regret 
are  blent  so  subtly  with  the  mysterious  design  of  the 
goddess  to  make  the  child  immortal,  is  an  excellent 
example  of  the  sentiment  of  pity  in  literature.  Yet 
though  it  has  reached  the  stage  of  conscious  literary 
interpretation,  much  of  its  early  mystical  or  cosmical 
character  still  lingers  about  the  story,  as  it  is  here  told. 
Later  mythologists  simply  define  the  personal  history ; 
but  in  this  hymn  we  may,  again  and  again,  trace  curi- 
ous links  of  connexion  with  the  original  purpose  of  the 
myth.  Its  subject  is  the  weary  woman,  indeed,  our 
Lady  of  Sorrows,  the  mater  dolorosa  of  the  ancient 
world,  but  with  a  certain  latent  reference,  all  through, 
to  the  mystical  person  of  the  earth.  Her  robe  of 
dark  blue  is  the  raiment  of  her  mourning,  but  also 
the  blue  robe  of  the  earth  in  shadow,  as  we  see  it 
in  Titian's  landscapes;  her  great  age  is  the  age  of 
the  immemorial  earth ;  she  becomes  a  nurse,  there- 
fore, holding  Demophoon  in  her  bosom  ;  the  folds  of 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  117 

her  garment  are  fragrant,  not  merely  with  the  incense 
of  Eleusis,  but  with  the  natural  perfume  of  flowers  and 
fruit.  The  sweet  breath  with  which  she  nourishes 
the  child  Demophoon,  is  the  warm  west  wind,  feeding 
all  germs  of  vegetable  life ;  her  bosom,  where  he  lies, 
is  the  bosom  of  the  earth,  with  its  strengthening  heat, 
reserved  and  shy,  offended  if  human  eyes  scrutinise  too 
closely  its  secret  chemistry ;  it  is  with  the  earth's  natu- 
ral surface  of  varied  colour  that  she  has,  "  in  time  past, 
given  pleasure  to  the  sun  " ;  the  yellow  hair  which 
falls  suddenly  over  her  shoulders,  at  her  transformation 
in  the  house  of  Celeus,  is  still  partly  the  golden  corn ; 
—  in  art  and  poetry  she  is  ever  the  blond  goddess ; 
tarrying  in  her  temple,  of  which  an  actual  hollow  in 
the  earth  is  the  prototype,  among  the  spicy  odours  of 
the  Eleusinian  ritual,  she  is  the  spirit  of  the  earth, 
lying  hidden  in  its  dark  folds  until  the  return  of 
spring,  among  the  flower-seeds  and  fragrant  roots, 
like  the  seeds  and  aromatic  woods  hidden  in  the 
wrappings  of  the  dead.  Throughout  the  poem,  we 
have  a  sense  of  a  certain  nearness  to  nature,  surviving 
from  an  earlier  world;  the  sea  is  understood  as 
a  person,  yet  is  still  the  real  sea,  with  the  waves 
moving.  When  it  is  said  that  no  bird  gave  Demeter 
tidings  of  Persephone,  we  feel  that  to  that  earlier 
world,  ways  of  communication  between  all  creatures 


118  THE  MYTH   OF 

may  have  seemed  open,  which  are  closed  to  us.  It 
is  Iris  who  brings  to  Demeter  the  message  of  Zeus ; 
that  is,  the  rainbow  signifies  to  the  earth  the  good- 
will of  the  rainy  sky  towards  it.  Persephone  springing 
up  with  great  joy  from  the  couch  of  Aidoneus,  to  return 
to  her  mother,  is  the  sudden  outburst  of  the  year.  The 
heavy  and  narcotic  aroma  of  spring  flowers  hangs  about 
her,  as  about  the  actual  spring.  And  this  mingling  of 
the  primitive  cosmical  import  of  the  myth  with  the 
later,  personal  interests  of  the  story,  is  curiously  illus- 
trated by  the  place  which  the  poem  assigns  to  Hecate. 
This  strange  Titaness  is,  first,  a  nymph  only;  after- 
wards, as  if  changed  incurably  by  the  passionate  cry 
of  Persephone,  she  becomes  her  constant  attendant, 
and  is  even  identified  with  her.  But  in  the  Homeric 
hymn  her  lunar  character  is  clear;  she  is  really  the 
moon  only,  who  hears  the  cry  of  Persephone,  as  the 
sun  saw  her,  when  Aidoneus  carried  her  away.  One 
morning,  as  the  mother  wandered,  the  moon  appeared, 
as  it  does  in  its  last  quarter,  rising  very  bright,  just  be- 
fore dawn ;  that  is,  in  the  words  of  the  Homeric  hymn, 
— "  on  the  tenth  morning  Hecate  met  her,  having  a 
light  in  her  hands."  The  fascinating,  but  enigmatical 
figure,  "  sitting  ever  in  her  cave,  half-veiled  with  a 
shining  veil,  thinking  delicate  thoughts,"  in  which 
we  seem  to  see  the  subject  of  some  picture  of  the 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  119 

Italian  Renaissance,  is  but  the  lover  of  Endymion — 
like  Persephone,  withdrawn,  in  her  season,  from  the 
eyes  of  men.  The  sun  saw  her;  the  moon  saw  her 
not,  but  heard  her  cry,  and  is  ever  after  the  half-veiled 
attendant  of  the  queen  of  dreams  and  of  the  dead. 

But  the  story  of  Demeter  and  Persephone  lends 
itself  naturally  to  description,  and  it  is  in  descriptive 
beauties  that  the  Homeric  hymn  excels ;  its  episodes 
are  finished  designs,  and  directly  stimulate  the  painter 
and  the  sculptor  to  a  rivalry  with  them.  Weaving  the 
names  of  the  flowers  into  his  verse,  names  familiar  to 
us  in  English,  though  their  Greek  originals  are  uncer- 
tain, the  writer  sets  Persephone  before  us,  herself  like 
one  of  them  —  KoAvKcoTris  —  like  the  budding  calyx  of 
a  flower,  —  in  a  picture,  which,  in  its  mingling  of  a 
quaint  freshness  and  simplicity  with  a  certain  earnest- 
ness, reads  like  a  description  of  some  early  Florentine 
design,  such  as  Sandro  Botticelli's  Allegory  of  the  Sea- 
sons. By  an  exquisite  chance  also,  a  common  metri- 
cal expression  connects  the  perfume  of  the  newly- 
created  narcissus  with  the  salt  odour  of  the  sea.  Like 
one  of  those  early  designs  also,  but  with  a  deeper 
infusion  of  religious  earnestness,  is  the  picture  of 
Demeter  sitting  at  the  wayside,  in  shadow  as  always, 
with  the  well  of  water  and  the  olive-tree.  She  has 
been  journeying  all  night,  and  now  it  is  morning,  and 


120  THE  MYTH   OF 

the  daughters  of  Celeus  bring  their  vessels  to  draw 
water.  That  image  of  the  seated  Demeter,  resting 
after  her  long  flight  "through  the  dark  continent,"  or 
in  the  house  of  Celeus,  when  she  refuses  the  red  wine, 
or  again,  solitary,  in  her  newly-finished  temple  of 
Eleusis,  enthroned  in  her  grief,  fixed  itself  deeply  on 
the  Greek  imagination,  and  became  a  favourite  subject 
of  Greek  artists.  When  the  daughters  of  Celeus 
come  to  conduct  her  to  Eleusis,  they  come  as  in  a 
Greek  frieze,  full  of  energy  and  motion  and  waving 
lines,  but  with  gold  and  colours  upon  it.  Eleusis  — 
coming — the  coming  of  Demeter  thither,  as  thus  told 
in  the  Homeric  hymn,  is  the  central  instance  in  Greek 
mythology  of  such  divine  appearances.  "  She  leaves 
for  a  season  the  company  of  the  gods  and  abides  among 
men  " ;  and  men's  merit  is  to  receive  her  in  spite  of 
appearances.  Metaneira  and  others,  in  the  Homeric 
hymn,  partly  detect  her  divine  character;  they  find 
Xa/us  —  a  certain  gracious  air  —  about  her,  which 
makes  them  think  her,  perhaps,  a  royal  person  in  dis- 
guise. She  becomes  in  her  long  wanderings  almost 
wholly  humanised,  and  in  return,  she  and  Persephone, 
alone  of  the  Greek  gods,  seem  to  have  been  the  ob- 
jects of  a  sort  of  personal  love  and  loyalty.  Yet  they 
are  ever  the  solemn  goddesses,  —  0eai  trep-val,  —  the 
word  expressing  religious  awe,  the  Greek  sense  of  the 
divine  presence. 


DEMETER   AND   PERSEPHONE  121 

Plato,  in  laying  down  the  rules  by  which  the  poets 
are  to  be  guided  in  speaking  about  divine  things  to  the 
citizens  of  the  ideal  republic,  forbids  all  those  episodes 
of  mythology  which  represent  the  gods  as  assuming 
various  forms,  and  visiting  the  earth  in  disguise.  Below 
the  express  reasons  which  he  assigns  for  this  rule,  we 
may  perhaps  detect  that  instinctive  antagonism  to  the 
old  Heraclitean  philosophy  of  perpetual  change,  which 
forces  him,  in  his  theory  of  morals  and  the  state,  of 
poetry  and  music,  of  dress  and  manners  even,  and  of 
style  in  the  very  vessels  and  furniture  of  daily  life,  on 
an  austere  simplicity,  the  older  Dorian  or  Egyptian 
type  of  a  rigid,  eternal  immobility.  The  disintegrating, 
centrifugal  influence,  which  had  penetrated,  as  he 
thought,  political  and  social  existence,  making  men  too 
myriad-minded,  had  laid  hold  on  the  life  of  the  gods 
also,  and,  even  in  their  calm  sphere,  one  could  hardly 
identify  a  single  divine  person  as  himself,  and  not 
another.  There  must,  then,  be  no  doubling,  no  dis- 
guises, no  stories  of  transformation.  The  modern 
reader,  however,  will  hardly  acquiesce  in  this  "im- 
provement "  of  Greek  mythology.  He  finds  in  these 
stories,  like  that,  for  instance,  of  the  appearance  of 
Athene  to  Telemachus,  in  the  first  book  of  the  Odys- 
sey, which  has  a  quite  biblical  mysticity  and  solemnity, 
—  stories  in  which,  the  hard  material  outline  breaking 


122  THE   MYTH   OF 

up,  the  gods  lay  aside  their  visible  form  like  a  garment, 
yet  remain  essentially  themselves,  —  not  the  least  spir- 
itual element  of  Greek  religion,  an  evidence  of  the 
sense  therein  of  unseen  presences,  which  might  at  any 
moment  cross  a  man's  path,  to  be  recognised,  in  half 
disguise,  by  the  more  delicately  trained  eye,  here  or 
there,  by  one  and  not  by  another.  Whatever  religious 
elements  they  lacked,  they  had  at  least  this  sense  of 
subtler  and  more  remote  ways  of  personal  presence. 

And  as  there  are  traces  in  the  Homeric  hymn  of 
the  primitive  cosmical  myth,  relics  of  the  first  stage  of 
the  development  of  the  story,  so  also  many  of  its  inci- 
dents are  probably  suggested  by  the  circumstances 
and  details  of  the  Eleusinian  ritual.  There  were  re- 
ligious usages  before  there  were  distinct  religious  con- 
ceptions, and  these  antecedent  religious  usages  shape 
and  determine,  at  many  points,  the  ultimate  religious 
conception,  as  the  details  of  the  myth  interpret  or 
explain  the  religious  custom.  The  hymn  relates  the 
legend  of  certain  holy  places,  to  which  various  impres- 
sive religious  rites  had  attached  themselves  —  the  holy 
well,  the  old  fountain,  the  stone  of  sorrow,  which  it 
was  the  office  of  the  "  interpreter  "  of  the  holy  places 
to  show  to  the  people.  The  sacred  way  which  led 
from  Athens  to  Eleusis  was  rich  in  such  memorials. 
The  nine  days  of  the  wanderings  of  Demeter  in  the 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  123 

Homeric  hymn  are  the  nine  days  of  the  duration  of 
the  greater  or  autumnal  mysteries ;  the  jesting  of  the 
old  woman  lambe,  who  endeavours  to  make  Demeter 
smile,  are  the  customary  mockeries  with  which  the 
worshippers,  as  they  rested  on  the  bridge,  on  the 
seventh  day  of  the  feast,  assailed  those  who  passed 
by.  The  torches  in  the  hands  of  Demeter  are  bor- 
rowed from  the  same  source ;  and  the  shadow  in 
which  she  is  constantly  represented,  and  which  is  the 
peculiar  sign  of  her  grief,  is  partly  ritual,  and  a  relic 
of  the  caves  of  the  old  Chthonian  worship,  partly 
poetical  —  expressive,  half  of  the  dark  earth  to  which 
she  escapes  from  Olympus,  half  of  her  mourning. 
She  appears  consistently,  in  the  hymn,  as  a  teacher 
of  rites,  transforming  daily  life,  and  the  processes  of 
life,  into  a  religious  solemnity.  With  no  misgiving  as 
to  the  proprieties  of  a  mere  narration,  the  hymn-writer 
mingles  these  symbolical  imitations  with  the  outlines 
of  the  original  story ;  and,  in  his  Demeter,  the  dra- 
matic person  of  the  mysteries  mixes  itself  with  the 
primitive  mythical  figure.  And  the  worshipper,  far 
from  being  offended  by  these  interpolations,  may  have 
found  a  special  impressiveness  in  them,  as  they  linked 
continuously  its  inner  sense  with  the  outward  imagery 
of  the  ritual. 

And,  as  Demeter  and   her  story  embodied   them- 


124  THE   MYTH   OF 

selves  gradually  in  the  Greek  imagination,  so  these 
mysteries  in  which  her  worship  found  its  chief  ex- 
pression, grew  up  little  by  little,  growing  always  in 
close  connexion  with  the  modifications  of  the  story, 
sometimes  prompting  them,  at  other  times  suggested 
by  them.  That  they  had  a  single  special  author  is 
improbable,  and  a  mere  invention  of  the  Greeks, 
ignorant  of  their  real  history  and  the  general  analogy 
of  such  matters.  Here  again,  as  in  the  story  itself, 
the  idea  of  development,  of  degrees,  of  a  slow  and 
natural  growth,  impeded  here,  diverted  there,  is  the 
illuminating  thought  which  earlier  critics  lacked. 
"No  tongue  may  speak  of  them,"  says  the  Homeric 
hymn ;  and  the  secret  has  certainly  been  kept.  The 
antiquarian,  dealing,  letter  by  letter,  with  what  is 
recorded  of  them,  has  left  few  certain  data  for  the 
reflexion  of  the  modern  student  of  the  Greek  religion  ; 
and  of  this,  its  central  solemnity,  only  a  fragmentary 
picture  can  be  made.  It  is  probable  that  these  mys- 
teries developed  the  symbolical  significance  of  the 
story  of  the  descent  into  Hades,  the  coming  of 
Demeter  to  Eleusis,  the  invention  of  Persephone. 
They  may  or  may  not  have  been  the  vehicle  of 
a  secret  doctrine,  but  were  certainly  an  artistic  spec- 
tacle, giving,  like  the  mysteries  of  the  middle  age,  a 
dramatic  representation  of  the  sacred  story,  —  perhaps 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  125 

a  detailed  performance,  perhaps  only  such  a  conven- 
tional representation,  as  was  afforded  for  instance  by 
the  medieval  ceremonies  of  Palm  Sunday ;  the  whole, 
probably,  centering  in  an  image  of  Demeter  —  the 
work  of  Praxiteles  or  his  school,  in  ivory  and  gold. 
There  is  no  reason  to  suppose  any  specific  difference 
between  the  observances  of  the  Eleusinian  festival  and 
the  accustomed  usages  of  the  Greek  religion ;  noc- 
turns,  libations,  quaint  purifications,  processions  — 
are  common  incidents  of  all  Greek  worship;  in  all 
religious  ceremonies  there  is  an  element  of  dramatic 
symbolism  ;  and  what  we  really  do  see,  through  those 
scattered  notices,  are  things  which  have  their  parallels 
in  a  later  age,  the  whole  being  not  altogether  unlike 
a  modern  pilgrimage.  The  exposition  of  the  sacred 
places  —  the  threshing-floor  of  Triptolemus,  the  rocky 
seat  on  which  Demeter  had  rested  in  her  sorrow,  the 
well  of  Callichorus — is  not  so  strange,  as  it  would 
seem,  had  it  no  modern  illustration.  The  libations, 
at  once  a  watering  of  the  vines  and  a  drink-offering 
to  the  dead  —  still  needing  men's  services,  waiting  for 
purification  perhaps,  or  thirsting,  like  Dante's  Adam 
of  Brescia,  in  their  close  homes  —  must,  to  almost  all 
minds,  have  had  a  certain  natural  impressiveness ;  and 
a  parallel  has  sometimes  been  drawn  between  this  festi- 
val and  All  Souls'  Day. 


126  THE   MYTH   OF 

And  who,  everywhere,  has  not  felt  the  mystical 
influence  of  that  prolonged  silence,  the  mystic  silence, 
from  which  the  very  word  "mystery"  has  its  origin? 
Something  also  there  undoubtedly  was,  which  coarser 
minds  might  misunderstand.  On  one  day,  the  initiated 
went  in  procession  to  the  sea-coast,  where  they  under- 
went a  purification  by  bathing  in  the  sea.  On  the  fifth 
night  there  was  the  torchlight  procession;  and,  by  a 
touch  of  real  life  in  him,  we  gather  from  the  first  page 
of  Plato's  Republic  that  such  processions  were  popular 
spectacles,  having  a  social  interest,  so  that  people 
made  much  of  attending  them.  There  was  the  pro- 
cession of  the  sacred  basket  filled  with  poppy-seeds 
and  pomegranates.  There  was  the  day  of  rest,  after 
the  stress  and  excitement  of  the  "great  night."  On 
the  sixth  day,  the  image  of  lacchus,  son  of  Demeter, 
crowned  with  myrtle  and  having  a  torch  in  its  hand, 
was  carried  in  procession,  through  thousands  of  spec- 
tators, along  the  sacred  way,  amid  joyous  shouts  and 
songs.  We  have  seen  such  processions;  we  under- 
stand how  many  different  senses,  and  how  lightly, 
various  spectators  may  put  on  them ;  how  little  defi- 
nite meaning  they  may  have  even  for  those  who  offici- 
ate in  them.  Here,  at  least,  there  was  the  image  itself, 
in  that  age,  with  its  close  connexion  between  religion 
and  art,  presumably  fair.  Susceptibility  to  the  im- 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  127 

pressions  of  religious  ceremonial  must  always  have 
varied  with  the  peculiarities  of  individual  temperament, 
as  it  varies  in  our  own  day ;  and  Eleusis,  with  its 
incense  and  sweet  singing,  may  have  been  as  little 
interesting  to  the  outward  senses  of  some  worshippers 
there,  as  the  stately  and  affecting  ceremonies  of  the 
medieval  church  to  many  of  its  own  members.  In  a 
simpler  yet  profounder  sense  than  has  sometimes  been 
supposed,  these  things  were  really  addressed  to  the 
initiated  only.1 

We  have  to  travel  a  long  way  from  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  the  hymn  of  Callimachus,  who  writes  in  the 
end  of  Greek  literature,  in  the  third  century  before 
Christ,  in  celebration  of  the  procession  of  the  sacred 
basket  of  Demeter,  not  at  the  Attic,  but  at  the  Alex- 
andrian Eleusinia.  He  developes,  in  something  of  the 
prosaic  spirit  of  a  medieval  writer  of  "  mysteries,"  one 
of  the  burlesque  incidents  of  the  story,  the  insatiable 
hunger  which  seized  on  Erysichthon  because  he  cut 
down  a  grove  sacred  to  the  goddess.  Yet  he  finds  his 
opportunities  for  skilful  touches  of  poetry ;  —  "As  the 
four  white  horses  draw  her  sacred  basket,"  he  says,  "  so 
will  the  great  goddess  bring  us  a  white  spring,  a  white 
summer."  He  describes  the  grove  itself,  with  its  hedge 

1  The  great  Greek  myths  are,  in  truth,  like  abstract  forces,  which 
ally  themselves  to  various  conditions. 


128  THE  MYTH   OF 

of  trees,  so  thick  that  an  arrow  could  hardly  pass 
through,  its  pines  and  fruit-trees  and  tall  poplars  within, 
and  the  water,  like  pale  gold,  running  from  the  con- 
duits. It  is  one  of  those  famous  poplars  that  receives 
the  first  stroke ;  it  sounds  heavily  to  its  companion 
trees,  and  Demeter  perceives  that  her  sacred  grove  is 
suffering.  Then  comes  one  of  those  transformations 
which  Plato  will  not  allow.  Vainly  anxious  to  save  the 
lad  from  his  ruin,  she  appears  in  the  form  of  a  priest- 
ess, but  with  the  long  hood  of  the  goddess,  and  the 
poppy  in  her  hand ;  and  there  is  something  of  a  real 
shudder,  some  still  surviving  sense  of  a  haunting  pres- 
ence in  the  groves,  in  the  verses  which  describe  her 
sudden  revelation,  when  the  workmen  flee  away,  leav- 
ing their  axes  in  the  cleft  trees. 

Of  the  same  age  as  the  hymn  of  Callimachus,  but 
with  very  different  qualities,  is  the  idyll  of  Theocritus 
on  the  Shepherds'  Journey.  Although  it  is  possible  to 
define  an  epoch  in  mythological  development  in  which 
literary  and  artificial  influences  began  to  remodel  the 
primitive,  popular  legend,  yet  still,  among  children, 
and  unchanging  childlike  people,  we  may  suppose  that 
that  primitive  stage  always  survived,  and  the  old,  in- 
stinctive influences  were  still  at  work.  As  the  subject 
of  popular  religious  celebrations  also,  the  myth  was 
still  the  property  of  the  people,  and  surrendered  to  its 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  129 

capricious  action.  The  shepherds  in  Theocritus,  on 
their  way  to  celebrate  one  of  the  more  homely  feasts 
of  Demeter,  about  the  time  of  harvest,  are  examples 
of  these  childlike  people ;  the  age  of  the  poets  has 
long  since  come,  but  they  are  of  the  older  and  simpler 
order,  lingering  on  in  the  midst  of  a  more  self-con- 
scious world.  In  an  idyll,  itself  full  of  the  delightful 
gifts  of  Demeter,  Theocritus  sets  them  before  us; 
through  the  blazing  summer  day's  journey,  the  smiling 
image  of  the  goddess  is  always  before  them ;  and  now 
they  have  reached  the  end  of  their  journey  :  — 

"  So  I,  and  Eucritus,  and  the  fair  Amyntichus,  turned 
aside  into  the  house  of  Phrasidamus,  and  lay  down  with 
delight  in  beds  of  sweet  tamarisk  and  fresh  cuttings 
from  the  vines,  strewn  on  the  ground.  Many  poplars 
and  elm-trees  were  waving  over  our  heads,  and  not  far 
off  the  running  of  the  sacred  water  from  the  cave  of 
the  nymphs  warbled  to  us ;  in  the  shimmering  branches 
the  sun-burnt  grasshoppers  were  busy  with  their  talk, 
and  from  afar  the  little  owl  cried  softly,  out  of  the 
tangled  thorns  of  the  blackberry ;  the  larks  were  sing- 
ing and  the  hedge-birds,  and  the  turtle-dove  moaned ; 
the  bees  flew  round  and  round  the  fountains,  murmur- 
ing softly ;  the  scent  of  late  summer  and  of  the  fall  of 
the  year  was  everywhere ;  the  pears  fell  from  the  trees 
at  our  feet,  and  apples  in  number  rolled  down  at  our 
K 


130  THE   MYTH   OF 

sides,  and  the  young  plum-trees  were  bent  to  the  earth 
with  the  weight  of  their  fruit.  The  wax,  four  years 
old,  was  loosed  from  the  heads  of  the  wine-jars.  O  ! 
nymphs  of  Castalia,  who  dwell  on  the  steeps  of  Par- 
nassus, tell  me,  I  pray  you,  was  it  a  draught  like  this 
that  the  aged  Chiron  placed  before  Hercules,  in  the 
stony  cave  of  Pholus?  Was  it  nectar  like  this  that 
made  the  mighty  shepherd  on  Anapus'  shore,  Poly- 
phemus, who  flung  the  rocks  upon  Ulysses'  ships,  dance 
among  his  sheepfolds  ?  —  A  cup  like  this  ye  poured 
out  now  upon  the  altar  of  Demeter,  who  presides  over 
the  threshing-floor.  May  it  be  mine,  once  more,  to 
dig  my  big  winnowing-fan  through  her  heaps  of  corn ; 
and  may  I  see  her  smile  upon  me,  holding  poppies 
and  handfuls  of  corn  in  her  two  hands  ! " 

Some  of  the  modifications  of  the  story  of  Demeter, 
as  we  find  it  in  later  poetry,  have  been  supposed  to 
be  due,  not  to  the  genuine  action  of  the  Greek  mind, 
but  to  the  influence  of  that  so-called  Orphic  literature, 
which,  in  the  generation  succeeding  Hesiod,  brought, 
from  Thessaly  and  Phrygia,  a  tide  of  mystical  ideas 
into  the  Greek  religion,  sometimes,  doubtless,  con- 
fusing the  clearness  and  naturalness  of  its  original 
outlines,  but  also  sometimes  imparting  to  them  a  new 
and  peculiar  grace.  Under  the  influence  of  this  Orphic 
poetry,  Demeter  was  blended,  or  identified,  with  Rhea 


DEMETER   AND   PERSEPHONE  131 

Cybele,  the  mother  of  the  gods,  the  wilder  earth- 
goddess  of  Phrygia;  and  the  romantic  figure  of 
Dionysus  Zagreus,  Dionysus  the  Hunter,  that  most 
interesting,  though  somewhat  melancholy  variation 
on  the  better  known  Dionysus,  was  brought,  as  son 
or  brother  of  Persephone,  into  her  circle,  the  mystical 
vine,  who,  as  Persephone  descends  and  ascends  from 
the  earth,  is  rent  to  pieces  by  the  Titans  every  year 
and  remains  long  in  Hades,  but  every  spring-time 
comes  out  of  it  again,  renewing  his  youth.  This 
identification  of  Demeter  with  Rhea  Cybele  is  the 
motive  which  has  inspired  a  beautiful  chorus  in  the 
Helena  —  the  new  Helena  —  of  Euripides,  that  great 
lover  of  all  subtle  refinements  and  modernisms,  who, 
in  this  play,  has  worked  on  a  strange  version  of  the 
older  story,  which  relates  that  Helen  had  never  really 
gone  to  Troy  at  all,  but  sent  her  soul  only  there,  apart 
from  her  sweet  body,  which  abode  all  that  time  in 
Egypt,  at  the  court  of  King  Proteus,  where  she  is 
found  at  last  by  her  husband  Menelaus,  so  that  the 
Trojan  war  was'  about  a  phantom,  after  all.  The 
chorus  has  even  less  than  usual  to  do  with  the  action 
of  the  play,  being  linked  to  it  only  by  a  sort  of 
parallel,  which  may  be  understood,  between  Menelaus 
seeking  Helen,  and  Demeter  seeking  Persephone. 
Euripides,  then,  takes  the  matter  of  the  Homeric 


132  THE  MYTH  OF 

hymn  into  the  region  of  a  higher  and  swifter  poetry, 
and  connects  it  with  the  more  stimulating  imagery 
of  the  Idaean  mother.  The  Orphic  mysticism  or 
enthusiasm  has  been  admitted  into  the  story,  which 
is  now  full  of  excitement,  the  motion  of  rivers, 
the  sounds  of  the  Bacchic  cymbals  heard  over  the 
mountains,  as  Demeter  wanders  among  the  woody 
valleys  seeking  her  lost  daughter,  all  directly  expressed 
in  the  vivid  Greek  words.  Demeter  is  no  longer  the 
subdued  goddess  of  the  quietly-ordered  fields,  but  the 
mother  of  the  gods,  who  has  her  abode  in  the  heights 
of  Mount  Ida,  who  presides  over  the  dews  and  waters 
of  the  white  springs,  whose  flocks  feed,  not  on  grain, 
but  on  the  curling  tendrils  of  the  vine,  both  of  which 
she  withholds  in  her  anger,  and  whose  chariot  is 
drawn  by  wild  beasts,  fruit  and  emblem  of  the  earth 
in  its  fiery  strength.  Not  Hecate,  but  Pallas  and 
Artemis,  in  full  armour,  swift-footed,  vindicators  of 
chastity,  accompany  her  in  her  search  for  Persephone, 
who  is  already  expressly,  Kopt)  apprjTos  —  "  the  maiden 
whom  none  may  name."  When  she  rests  from  her 
long  wanderings,  it  is  into  the  stony  thickets  of 
Mount  Ida,  deep  with  snow,  that  she  throws  her- 
self, in  her  profound  grief.  When  Zeus  desires  to 
end  her  pain,  the  Muses  and  the  "  solemn "  Graces 
are  sent  to  dance  and  sing  before  her.  It  is  then  that 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  133 

Cypris,  the  goddess  of  beauty,  and  the  original  cause, 
therefore,  of  her  distress,  takes  into  her  hands  the 
brazen  tambourines  of  the  Dionysiac  worship  with  their 
Chthonian  or  deep-noted  sound ;  and  it  is  she,  not 
the  old  lambe,  who  with  this  wild  music,  heard  thus 
for  the  first  time,  makes  Demeter  smile  at  last. 
"  Great,"  so  the  chorus  ends  with  a  picture,  "  great  is 
the  power  of  the  stoles  of  spotted  fawn-skins,  and  the 
green  leaves  of  ivy  twisted  about  the  sacred  wands, 
and  the  wheeling  motion  of  the  tambourine  whirled 
round  in  the  air,  and  the  long  hair  floating  unbound 
in  honour  of  Bromius,  and  the  nocturns  of  the  god- 
dess, when  the  moon  looks  full  upon  them." 

The  poem  of  Claudian  on  the  Rape  of  Proserpine, 
the  longest  extant  work  connected  with  the  story 
of  Demeter,  yet  itself  unfinished,  closes  the  world  of 
classical  poetry.  Writing  in  the  fourth  century  of 
the  Christian  era,  Claudian  has  his  subject  before 
him  in  the  whole  extent  of  its  various  development, 
and  also  profits  by  those  many  pictorial  representa- 
tions of  it,  which,  from  the  famous  picture  of  Polyg- 
notus  downwards,  delighted  the  ancient  world.  His 
poem,  then,  besides  having  an  intrinsic  charm,  is 
valuable  for  some  reflexion  in  it  of  those  lost  works, 
being  itself  pre-eminently  a  work  in  colour,  and  excel- 
ling in  a  kind  of  painting  in  words,  which  brings  its 


134  THE  MYTH  OF 

subject  very  pleasantly  almost  to  the  eye  of  the  reader. 
The  mind  of  this  late  votary  of  the  old  gods,  in  a 
world  rapidly  changing,  is  crowded  with  all  the  beau- 
tiful forms  generated  by  mythology,  and  now  about  to 
be  forgotten.  In  this  after-glow  of  Latin  literature, 
lighted  up  long  after  their  fortune  had  set,  and  just 
before  their  long  night  began,  they  pass  before  us,  in 
his  verses,  with  the  utmost  clearness,  like  the  figures 
in  an  actual  procession.  The  nursing  of  the  infant 
Sun  and  Moon  by  Tethys ;  Proserpine  and  her  com- 
panions gathering  flowers  at  early  dawn,  when  the 
violets  are  drinking  in  the  dew,  still  lying  white  upon 
the  grass ;  the  image  of  Pallas  winding  the  peaceful 
blossoms  about  the  steel  crest  of  her  helmet;  the 
realm  of  Proserpine,  softened  somewhat  by  her  com- 
ing, and  filled  with  a  quiet  joy;  the  matrons  of 
Elysium  crowding  to  her  marriage  toilet,  with  the 
bridal  veil  of  yellow  in  their  hands;  the  Manes, 
crowned  with  ghostly  flowers  yet  warmed  a  little, 
at  the  marriage  feast;  the  ominous  dreams  of  the 
mother ;  the  desolation  of  the  home,  like  an  empty 
bird's-nest  or  an  empty  fold,  when  she  returns  and  finds 
Proserpine  gone,  and  the  spider  at  work  over  her 
unfinished  embroidery ;  the  strangely-figured  raiment, 
the  flowers  in  the  grass,  which  were  once  blooming 
youths,  having  both  their  natural  colour  and  the 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  135 

colour  of  their  poetry  in  them,  and  the  clear  little 
fountain  there,  which  was  once  the  maiden  Cyane ;  — 
all  this  is  shown  in  a  series  of  descriptions,  like  the 
designs  in  some  unwinding  tapestry,  like  Proserpine's 
own  embroidery,  the  description  of  which  is  the  most 
brilliant  of  these  pictures,  and,  in  its  quaint  confusion 
of  the  images  of  philosophy  with  those  of  mythology, 
anticipates  something  of  the  fancy  of  the  Italian  Re- 
naissance. 

"  Proserpina,  filling  the  house  soothingly  with  her 
low  song,  was  working  a  gift  against  the  return  of 
her  mother,  with  labour  all  to  be  in  vain.  In  it,  she 
marked  out  with  her  needle  the  houses  of  the  gods 
and  the  series  of  the  elements,  showing  by  what  law, 
nature,  the  parent  of  all,  settled  the  strife  of  ancient 
times,  and  the  seeds  of  things  disparted  into  their 
places;  the  lighter  elements  are  borne  aloft,  the 
heavier  fall  to  the  centre ;  the  air  grows  bright  with 
heat,  a  blazing  light  whirls  round  the  firmament; 
the  sea  flows ;  the  earth  hangs  suspended  in  its  place. 
And  there  were  divers  colours  in  it ;  she  illuminated 
the  stars  with  gold,  infused  a  purple  shade  into  the 
water,  and  heightened  the  shore  with  gems  of  flowers ; 
and,  under  her  skilful  hand,  the  threads,  with  their 
inwrought  lustre,  swell  up,  in  momentary  counterfeit 
of  the  waves;  you  might  think  that  the  sea- wind 


136  THE'  MYTH  OF 

flapped  against  the  rocks,  and  that  a  hollow  murmur 
came  creeping  over  the  thirsty  sands.  She  puts  in 
the  five  zones,  marking  with  a  red  ground  the  mid- 
most zone,  possessed  by  burning  heat ;  its  outline  was 
parched  and  stiff;  the  threads  seemed  thirsty  with 
the  constant  sunshine ;  on  either  side  lay  the  two 
zones  proper  for  human  life,  where  a  gentle  temper- 
ance reigns ;  and  at  the  extremes  she  drew  the  twin 
zones  of  numbing  cold,  making  her  work  dun  and  sad 
with  the  hues  of  perpetual  frost.  She  paints  in,  too, 
the  sacred  places  of  Dis,  her  father's  brother,  and  the 
Manes,  so  fatal  to  her ;  and  an  omen  of  her  doom 
was  not  wanting ;  for,  as  she  worked,  as  if  with  fore- 
knowledge of  the  future,  her  face  became  wet  with 
a  sudden  burst  of  tears.  And  now,  in  the  utmost 
border  of  the  tissue,  she  had  begun  to  wind  in  the 
wavy  line  of  the  river  Oceanus,  with  its  glassy  shal- 
lows ;  but  the  door  sounds  on  its  hinges,  and  she 
perceives  the  goddesses  coming ;  the  unfinished  work 
drops  from  her  hands,  and  a  ruddy  blush  lights  up  in 
her  clear  and  snow-white  face." 

I  have  reserved  to  the  last  what  is  perhaps  the 
daintiest  treatment  of  this  subject  in  classical  litera- 
ture, the  account  of  it  which  Ovid  gives  in  the  Fasti 
—  a  kind  of  Roman  Calendar  —  for  the  seventh  of 
April,  the  day  of  the  games  of  Ceres.  He  tells  over 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  137 

again  the  old  story,  with  much  of  which,  he  says,  the 
reader  will  be  already  familiar ;  but  he  has  something 
also  of  his  own  to  add  to  it,  which  the  reader  will 
hear  for  the  first  time ;  and,  like  one  of  those  old 
painters  who,  in  depicting  a  scene  of  Christian  history, 
drew  from  their  own  fancy  or  experience  its  special 
setting  and  accessories,  he  translates  the  story  into 
something  very  different  from  the  Homeric  hymn. 
The  writer  of  the  Homeric  hymn  had  made  Celeus  a 
king,  and  represented  the  scene  at  Eleusis  in  a  fair 
palace,  like  the  Venetian  painters  who  depict  the  per- 
sons of  the  Holy  Family  with  royal  ornaments.  Ovid, 
on  the  other  hand,  is  more  like  certain  painters  of  the 
early  Florentine  school,  who  represent  the  holy  per- 
sons amid  the  more  touching  circumstances  of  humble 
life ;  and  the  special  something  of  his  own  which  he 
adds,  is  a  pathos  caught  from  homely  things,  not 
without  a  delightful,  just  perceptible,  shade  of  humour 
even,  so  rare  in  such  work.  All  the  mysticism  has 
disappeared ;  but,  instead,  we  trace  something  of  that 
"  worship  of  sorrow,"  which  has  been  sometimes  sup- 
posed to  have  had  no  place  in  classical  religious  senti- 
ment. In  Ovid's  well-finished  elegiacs,  Persephone's 
flower-gathering,  the  Anthology,  reaches  its  utmost 
delicacy;  but  I  give  the  following  episode  for  the 
sake  of  its  pathetic  expression. 


138  THE  MYTH   OF 

"  After  many  wanderings  Ceres  was  come  to  Attica. 
There,  in  the  utmost  dejection,  for  the  first  time,  she 
sat  down  to  rest  on  a  bare  stone,  which  the  people  of 
Attica  still  call  the  stone  of  sorrow.  For  many  days 
she  remained  there  motionless,  under  the  open  sky, 
heedless  of  the  rain  and  of  the  frosty  moonlight. 
Places  have  their  fortunes ;  and  what  is  now  the  illus- 
trious town  of  Eleusis  was  then  the  field  of  an  old 
man  named  Celeus.  He  was  carrying  home  a  load  of 
acorns,  and  wild  berries  shaken  down  from  the  bram- 
bles, and  dry  wood  for  burning  on  the  hearth;  his 
little  daughter  was  leading  two  goats  home  from  the 
hills ;  and  at  home  there  was  a  little  boy  lying  sick  in 
his  cradle.  'Mother,'  said  the  little  girl  —  and  the 
goddess  was  moved  at  the  name  of  mother  —  'what 
do  you,  all  alone,  in  this  solitary  place  ? '  The  old  man 
stopped  too,  in  spite  of  his  heavy  burden,  and  bade 
her  take  shelter  in  his  cottage,  though  it  was  but  a  little 
one.  But  at  first  she  refused  to  come ;  she  looked 
like  an  old  woman,  and  an  old  woman's  coif  confined 
her  hair ;  and  as  the  man  still  urged  her,  she  said  to 
him,  '  Heaven  bless  you;  and  may  children  always  be 
yours  !  My  daughter  has  been  stolen  from  me.  Alas  ! 
how  much  happier  is  your  lot  than  mine  ; '  and,  though 
weeping  is  impossible  for  the  gods,  as  she  spoke,  a 
bright  drop,  like  a  tear,  fell  into  her  bosom.  Soft- 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  139 

hearted,  the  little  girl  and  the  old  man  weep  together. 
And  after  that  the  good  man  said, '  Arise  !  despise  not 
the  shelter  of  my  little  home ;  so  may  the  daughter 
whom  you  seek  be  restored  to  you.'  '  Lead  me,' 
answered  the  goddess ;  '  you  have  found  out  the  secret 
of  moving  me ; '  and  she  arose  from  the  stone,  and 
followed  the  old  man ;  and  as  they  went  he  told  her 
of  the  sick  child  at  home  —  how  he  is  restless  with 
pain,  and  cannot  sleep.  And  she,  before  entering  the 
little  cottage,  gathered  from  the  untended  earth  the 
soothing  and  sleep-giving  poppy ;  and  as  she  gathered 
it,  it  is  said  that  she  forgot  her  vow,  and  tasted  of  the 
seeds,  and  broke  her  long  fast,  unaware.  As  she  came 
through  the  door,  she  saw  the  house  full  of  trouble,  for 
now  there  was  no  more  hope  of  life  for  the  sick  boy. 
She  saluted  the  mother,  whose  name  was  Metaneira, 
and  humbly  kissed  the  lips  of  the  child,  with  her  own 
lips ;  then  the  paleness  left  its  face,  and  suddenly  the 
parents  see  the  strength  returning  to  its  body ;  so  great 
is  the  force  that  comes  from  the  divine  mouth.  And 
the  whole  family  was  full  of  joy  —  the  mother  and  the 
father  and  the  little  girl ;  they  were  the  whole  house- 
hold."1 

Three  profound  ethical  conceptions,  three  impressive 

1  With  this  may  be  connected  another  passage  of  Ovid  —  Meta- 
morphoses ;  v.  391-408. 


140  THE   MYTH   OF 

sacred  figures,  have  now  defined  themselves  for  the 
Greek  imagination,  condensed  from  all  the  traditions 
which  have  now  been  traced,  from  the  hymns  of  the 
poets,  from  the  instinctive  and  unformulated  mysticism 
of  primitive  minds.  Demeter  is  become  the  divine 
sorrowing  mother.  Kore,  the  goddess  of  summer,  is 
become  Persephone,  the  goddess  of  death,  still  associ- 
ated with  the  forms  and  odours  of  flowers  and  fruit, 
yet  as  one  risen  from  the  dead  also,  presenting  one  side 
of  her  ambiguous  nature  to  men's  gloomier  fancies. 
Thirdly,  there  is  the  image  of  Demeter  enthroned, 
chastened  by  sorrow,  and  somewhat  advanced  in  age, 
blessing  the  earth,  in  her  joy  at  the  return  of  Kore. 
The  myth  has  now  entered  on  the  third  phase  of  its 
life,  in  which  it  becomes  the  property  of  those  more 
elevated  spirits,  who,  in  the  decline  of  the  Greek  relig- 
ion, pick  and  choose  and  modify,  with  perfect  freedom 
of  mind,  whatever  in  it  may  seem  adapted  to  minister 
to  their  culture.  In  this  way,  the  myths  of  the  Greek 
religion  become  parts  of  an  ideal,  visible  embodiments 
of  the  susceptibilities  and  intuitions  of  the  nobler  kind 
of  souls ;  and  it  is  to  this  latest  phase  of  mythological 
development  that  the  highest  Greek  sculpture  allies 
itself.  Its  function  is  to  give  visible  aesthetic  expres- 
sion to  the  constituent  parts  of  that  ideal.  As  poetry 
dealt  chiefly  with  the  incidents  of  the  story,  so  it  is 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  141 

with  the  personages  of  the  story  —  with  Demeter  and 
Kore  themselves  —  that  sculpture  has  to  do. 

For  the  myth  of  Demeter,  like  the  Greek  religion  in 
general,  had  its  unlovelier  side,  grotesque,  unhellenic, 
unglorified  by  art,  illustrated  well  enough  by  the  de- 
scription Pausanias  gives  us  of  his  visit  to  the  cave  of 
the  Black  Demeter  at  Phigalia.  In  his  time  the  image 
itself  had  vanished  ;  but  he  tells  us  enough  about  it  to 
enable  us  to  realise  its  general  characteristics,  mon- 
strous as  the  special  legend  with  which  it  was  con- 
nected, the  black  draperies,  the  horse's  head  united  to 
the  woman's  body,  with  the  carved  reptiles  creeping 
about  it.  If,  with  the  thought  of  this  gloomy  image 
of  our  mother  the  earth,  in  our  minds,  we  take  up  one 
of  those  coins  which  bear  the  image  of  Kore  or  De- 
meter,1  we  shall  better  understand  what  the  function 
of  sculpture  really  was,  in  elevating  and  refining  the 
religious  conceptions  of  the  Greeks.  Looking  on  the 
profile,  for  instance,  on  one  of  those  coins  of  Messene, 
which  almost  certainly  represent  Demeter,  and  noting 
the  crisp,  chaste  opening  of  the  lips,  the  minutely 
wrought  earrings,  and  the  delicately  touched  ears  of 
corn,  —  this  trifling  object  being  justly  regarded  as,  in 
its  aesthetic  qualities,  an  epitome  of  art  on  a  larger 

1  On  these  small  objects  the  mother  and  daughter  are  hard  to 
distinguish,  the  latter  being  recognisable  only  by  a  greater  delicacy 
in  the  features  and  the  more  evident  stamp  of  youth. 


142  THE   MYTH   OF 

scale,  —  we  shall  see  how  far  the  imagination  of  the 
Greeks  had  travelled  from  what  their  Black  Demeter 
shows  us  had  once  been  possible  for  them,  and  in 
making  the  gods  of  their  worship  the  objects  of  a 
worthy  companionship  in  their  thoughts.  Certainly, 
the  mind  of  the  old  workman  who  struck  that  coin  was, 
if  we  may  trust  the  testimony  of  his  work,  unclouded 
by  impure  or  gloomy  shadows.  The  thought  of  De- 
meter  is  impressed  here,  with  all  the  purity  and  pro- 
portion, the  purged  and  dainty  intelligence  of  the 
human  countenance.  The  mystery  of  it  is  indeed 
absent,  perhaps  could  hardly  have  been  looked  for  in 
so  slight  a  thing,  intended  for  no  sacred  purpose,  and 
tossed  lightly  from  hand  to  hand.  But  in  his  firm  hold 
on  the  harmonies  of  the  human  face,  the  designer  of 
this  tranquil  head  of  Demeter  is  on  the  one  road  to  a 
command  over  the  secrets  of  all  imaginative  pathos 
and  mystery;  though,  in  the  perfect  fairness  and 
blitheness  of  his  work,  he  might  seem  almost  not  to 
have  known  the  incidents  of  her  terrible  story. 

It  is  probable  that,  at  a  later  period  than  in  other 
equally  important  temples  of  Greece,  the  earlier  ar- 
chaic representation  of  Demeter  in  the  sanctuary  of 
Eleusis,  was  replaced  by  a  more  beautiful  image  in  the 
new  style,  with  face  and  hands  of  ivory,  having  there- 
fore, in  tone  and  texture,  some  subtler  likeness  to 


DEMETER   AND   PERSEPHONE  143 

women's  flesh,  and  the  closely  enveloping  drapery 
being  constructed  in  daintily  beaten  plates  of  gold. 
Praxiteles  seems  to  have  been  the  first  to  bring  into 
the  region  of  a  freer  artistic  handling  these  shy  deities 
of  the  earth,  shrinking  still  within  the  narrow  restraints 
of  a  hieratic,  conventional  treatment,  long  after  the 
more  genuine  Olympians  had  broken  out  of  them. 
The  school  of  Praxiteles,  as  distinguished  from  that  of 
Pheidias,  is  especially  the  school  of  grace,  relaxing  a 
little  the  severe  ethical  tension  of  the  latter,  in  favour 
of  a  slightly  Asiatic  sinuosity  and  tenderness.  Pausa- 
nius  tells  us  that  he  carved  the  two  goddesses  for  the 
temple  of  Demeter  at  Athens ;  and  Pliny  speaks  of  two 
groups  of  his  in  brass,  the  one  representing  the  stealing 
of  Persephone,  the  other  her  later,  annual  descent  into 
Hades,  conducted  thither  by  the  now  pacified  mother. 
All  alike  have  perished ;  though  perhaps  some  more  or 
less  faint  reflexion  of  the  most  important  of  these 
designs  may  still  be  traced  on  many  painted  vases 
which  depict  the  stealing  of  Persephone,  —  a  helpless, 
plucked  flower  in  the  arms  of  Aidoneus.  And  in  this 
almost  traditional  form,  the  subject  was  often  repre- 
sented, in  low  relief,  on  tombs,  some  of  which  still 
remain ;  in  one  or  two  instances,  built  up,  oddly 
enough,  in  the  walls  of  Christian  churches.  On  the 
tombs  of  women  who  had  died  in  early  life,  this  was  a 


144  THE   MYTH   OF 

favourite  subject,  some  likeness  of  the  actual  lineaments 
of  the  deceased  being  sometimes  transferred  to  the 
features  of  Persephone. 

Yet  so  far,  it  might  seem,  when  we  consider  the 
interest  of  this  story  in  itself,  and  its  importance  in  the 
Greek  religion,  that  no  adequate  expression  of  it  had 
remained  to  us  in  works  of  art.  But  in  the  year  1857, 
the  discovery  of  the  marbles,  in  the  sacred  precinct  of 
Demeter  at  Cnidus,  restored  to  us  an  illustration  of 
the  myth  in  its  artistic  phase,  hardly  less  central  than 
the  Homeric  hymn  in  its  poetical  phase.  With  the 
help  of  the  descriptions  and  plans  of  Mr.  Newton's 
book,1  we  can  form,  as  one  always  wishes  to  do  in 
such  cases,  a  clear  idea  of  the  place  where  these 
marbles  —  three  statues  of  the  best  style  of  Greek 
sculpture,  now  in  the  British  Museum  —  were  found. 
Occupying  a  ledge  of  rock,  looking  towards  the  sea, 
at  the  base  of  a  cliff  of  upheaved  limestone,  of  singu- 
lar steepness  and  regularity  of  surface,  the  spot  pre- 
sents indications  of  volcanic  disturbance,  as  if  a  chasm 
in  the  earth  had  opened  here.  It  was  this  character, 
suggesting  the  belief  in  an  actual  connexion  with  the 
interior  of  the  earth,  (local  tradition  claiming  it  as  the 
scene  of  the  stealing  of  Persephone,)  which  probably 

1  A  History  of  Discoveries  at  Halicarnassus,  Cnidus,  and  Bran- 
chides. 


DEMETER  AND  PERSEPHONE  145 

gave  rise,  as  in  other  cases  where  the  landscape  pre- 
sented some  peculiar  feature  in  harmony  with  the 
story,  to  the  dedication  upon*  it  of  a  house  and  an 
image  of  Demeter,  with  whom  were  associated  Kore 
and  "  the  gods  with  Demeter  "  —  ot  Oeol  napa  Aa/xar/H 
—  Aidoneus,  and  the  mystical  or  Chthonian  Dionysus. 
The  house  seems  to  have  been  a  small  chapel  only,  of 
simple  construction,  and  designed  for  private  use,  the 
site  itself  having  been  private  property,  consecrated 
by  a  particular  family,  for  their  own  religious  uses, 
although  other  persons,  servants  or  dependents  of  the 
founders,  may  also  have  frequented  it.  The  architect- 
ure seems  to  have  been  insignificant,  but  the  sculpture 
costly  and  exquisite,  belonging,  if  contemporary  with 
the  erection  of  the  building,  to  a  great  period  of  Greek 
art,  of  which  also  it  is  judged  to  possess  intrinsic 
marks  —  about  the  year  350  before  Christ,  the  proba- 
ble date  of  the  dedication  of  the  little  temple.  The 
artists  by  whom  these  works  were  produced  were, 
therefore,  either  the  contemporaries  of  Praxiteles, 
whose  Venus  was  for  many  centuries  the  glory  of 
Cnidus,  or  belonged  to  the  generation  immediately 
succeeding  him.  The  temple  itself  was  probably 
thrown  down  by  a  renewal  of  the  volcanic  disturb- 
ances ;  the  statues  however  remaining,  and  the  minis- 
ters and  worshippers  still  continuing  to  make  shift  for 


146  THE  MYTH  OF 

their  sacred  business  in  the  place,  now  doubly  vener- 
able, but  with  its  temple  unrestored,  down  to  the 
second  or  third  century  of  the  Christian  era,  its  fre- 
quenters being  now  perhaps  mere  chance  comers,  the 
family  of  the  original  donors  having  become  extinct, 
or  having  deserted  it.  Into  this  later  arrangement, 
clearly  divined  by  Mr.  Newton,  through  those  faint 
indications  which  mean  much  for  true  experts,  the 
extant  remains,  as  they  were  found  upon  the  spot, 
permit  us  to  enter.  It  is  one  of  the  graves  of  that  old 
religion,  but  with  much  still  fresh  in  it.  We  see  it 
with  its  provincial  superstitions,  and  its  curious  magic 
rites,  but  also  with  its  means  of  really  solemn  impres- 
sions, in  the  culminating  forms  of  Greek  art ;  the  two 
faces  of  the  Greek  religion  confronting  each  other 
here,  and  the  whole  having  that  rare  peculiarity  of 
a  kind  of  personal  stamp  upon  it,  the  place  having 
been  designed  to  meet  the  fancies  of  one  particular 
soul,  or  at  least  of  one  family.  It  is  always  difficult  to 
bring  the  every-day  aspect  of  Greek  religion  home 
to  us ;  but  even  the  slighter  details  of  this  little  sanc- 
tuary help  us  to  do  this ;  and  knowing  so  little,  as  we 
do,  of  the  greater  mysteries  of  Demeter,  this  glance 
into  an  actual  religious  place  dedicated  to  her,  and 
with  the  air  of  her  worship  still  about  it,  is  doubly 
interesting.  The  little  votive  figures  of  the  goddesses, 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  147 

in  baked  earth,  were  still  lying  stored  in  the  small 
treasury  intended  for  such  objects,  or  scattered  about 
the  feet  of  the  images,  together  with  lamps  in  great 
number,  a  lighted  lamp  being  a  favourite  offering,  in 
memory  of  the  torches  with  which  Demeter  sought 
Persephone,  or  from  some  sense  of  inherent  darkness 
in  these  gods  of  the  earth ;  those  torches  in  the  hands 
of  Demeter  being  indeed  originally  the  artificial  warmth 
and  brightness  of  lamp  and  fire,  on  winter  nights.  The 
dirce  or  spells,  —  KaTaSeoyxot  —  binding  or  devoting 
certain  persons  to  the  infernal  gods,  inscribed  on  thin 
rolls  of  lead,  with  holes,  sometimes,  for  hanging  them 
up  about  those  quiet  statues,  still  lay,  just  as  they  were 
left,  anywhere  within  the  sacred  precinct,  illustrating 
at  once  the  gloomier  side  of  the  Greek  religion  in 
general,  and  of  Demeter  and  Persephone  especially, 
in  their  character  of  avenging  deities,  and,  as  relics  of 
ancient  magic,  reproduced  so  strangely  at  other  times 
and  places,  reminding  us  of  the  permanence  of  certain 
odd  ways  of  human  thought.  A  woman  binds  with 
her  spell  the  person  who  seduces  her  husband  away 
from  her  and  her  children ;  another,  the  person  who 
has  accused  her  of  preparing  poison  for  her  husband  ; 
another  devotes  one  who  has  not  restored  a  borrowed 
garment,  or  has  stolen  a  bracelet,  or  certain  drinking- 
horns  ;  and,  from  some  instances,  we  might  infer  that 


148  THE  MYTH  OF 

this  was  a  favourite  place  of  worship  for  the  poor  and 
ignorant.  In  this  living  picture,  we  find  still  lingering 
on,  at  the  foot  of  the  beautiful  Greek  marbles,  that 
phase  of  religious  temper  which  a  cynical  mind  might 
think  a  truer  link  of  its  unity  and  permanence  than 
any  higher  aesthetic  instincts  —  a  phase  of  it,  which 
the  art  of  sculpture,  humanising  and  refining  man's 
conceptions  of  the  unseen,  tended  constantly  to  do 
away.  For  the  higher  side  of  the  Greek  religion,  thus 
humanised  and  refined  by  art,  and  elevated  by  it  to 
the  sense  of  beauty,  is  here  also. 

There  were  three  ideal  forms,  as  we  saw,  gradually 
shaping  themselves  in  the  development  of  the  story 
of  Demeter,  waiting  only  for  complete  realisation  at 
the  hands  of  the  sculptor ;  and  now,  with  these  forms 
in  our  minds,  let  us  place  ourselves  in  thought  before 
the  three  images  which  once  probably  occupied  the 
three  niches  or  ambries  in  the  face  of  that  singular 
cliff  at  Cnidus,  one  of  them  being  then  wrought  on  a 
larger  scale.  Of  the  three  figures,  one  probably  rep- 
resents Persephone,  as  the  goddess  of  the  dead ;  the 
second,  Demeter  enthroned ;  the  third  is  probably  a 
portrait-statue  of  a  priestess  of  Demeter,  but  may 
perhaps,  even  so,  represent  Demeter  herself,  Demeter 
Achcea,  Ceres  Deserta,  the  mater  dolorosa  of  the 
Greeks,  a  type  not  as  yet  recognised  in  any  other 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  149 

work  of  ancient  art.  Certainly,  it  seems  hard  not  to 
believe  that  this  work  is  in  some  way  connected  with 
the  legend  of  the  place  to  which  it  belonged,  and  the 
main  subject  of  which  it  realises  so  completely ;  and, 
at  least,  it  shows  how  the  higher  Greek  sculpture  would 
have  worked  out  this  motive.  If  Demeter  at  all,  it  is 
Demeter  the  seeker,  —  A^w,  —  as  she  was  called  in 
the  mysteries,  in  some  pause  of  her  restless  wandering 
over  the  world  in  search  of  the  lost  child,  and  become 
at  last  an  abstract  type  of  the  wanderer.  The  Ho- 
meric hymn,  as  we  saw,  had  its  sculptural  motives,  the 
great  gestures  of  Demeter,  who  was  ever  the  stately 
goddess,  as  she  followed  the  daughters  of  Celeus,  or 
sat  by  the  well-side,  or  went  out  and  in,  through  the 
halls  of  the  palace,  expressed  in  monumental  words. 
With  the  sentiment  of  that  monumental  Homeric 
presence  this  statue  is  penetrated,  uniting  a  certain 
solemnity  of  attitude  and  bearing,  to  a  profound  pite- 
ousness,  an  unrivalled  pathos  of  expression.  There  is 
something  of  the  pity  of  Michelangelo's  mater  dolo- 
rosa,  in  the  wasted  form  and  marred  countenance,  yet 
with  the  light  breaking  faintly  over  it  from  the  eyes, 
which,  contrary  to  the  usual  practice  in  ancient  sculpt- 
ure, are  represented  as  looking  upwards.  It  is  the 
aged  woman  who  has  escaped  from  pirates,  who  has 
but  just  escaped  being  sold  as  a  slave,  calling  on  the 


150  THE   MYTH   OF 

young  for  pity.  The  sorrows  of  her  long  wanderings 
seem  to  have  passed  into  the  marble ;  and  in  this  too, 
it  meets  the  demands  which  the  reader  of  the  Homeric 
hymn,  with  its  command  over  the  resources  of  human 
pathos,  makes  upon  the  sculptor.  The  tall  figure,  in 
proportion  above  the  ordinary  height,  is  veiled,  and 
clad  to  the  feet  in  the  longer  tunic,  its  numerous  folds 
hanging  in  heavy  parallel  lines,  opposing  the  lines  of 
the  peplus,  or  cloak,  which  cross  it  diagonally  over  the 
breast,  enwrapping  the  upper  portion  of  the  body 
somewhat  closely.  It  is  the  very  type  of  the  wander- 
ing woman,  going  grandly,  indeed,  as  Homer  describes 
her,  yet  so  human  in  her  anguish,  that  we  seem  to 
recognise  some  far  descended  shadow  of  her,  in  the 
homely  figure  of  the  roughly  clad  French  peasant 
woman,  who,  in  one  of  Corot's  pictures,  is  hasting 
along  under  a  sad  light,  as  the  day  goes  out  behind 
the  little  hiil.  We  have  watched  the  growth  of  the 
merely  personal  sentiment  in  the  story ;  and  we  may 
notice  that,  if  this  figure  be  indeed  Demeter,  then  the 
conception  of  her  has  become  wholly  humanised ;  no 
trace  of  the  primitive  cosmical  import  of  the  myth, 
no  colour  or  scent  of  the  mystical  earth,  remains 
about  it. 

The  seated  figure,  much  mutilated,  and  worn  by 
long  exposure,  yet  possessing,  according  to  the  best 


DEMETER   AND   PERSEPHONE  151 

critics,  marks  of  the  school  of  Praxiteles,  is  almost 
undoubtedly  the  image  of  Demeter  enthroned.  Th'ree 
times  in  the  Homeric  hymn  she  is  represented  as  sit- 
ting, once  by  the  fountain  at  the  wayside,  again  in  the 
house  of  Celeus,  and  again  in  the  newly  finished 
temple  of  Eleusis ;  but  always  in  sorrow ;  seated  on 
the  Trerpa  dye'Aao-Tos,  which,  as  Ovid  told  us,  the  peo- 
ple of  Attica  still  called  the  stone  of  sorrow.  Here 
she  is  represented  in  her  later  state  of  reconciliation, 
enthroned  as  the  glorified  mother  of  all  things.  The 
delicate  plaiting  of  the  tunic  about  the  throat,  the 
formal  curling  of  the  hair,  and  a  certain  weight  of  over- 
thoughtfulness  in  the  brows,  recall  the  manner  of 
Leonardo  da  Vinci,  a  master,  one  of  whose  charac- 
teristics is  a  very  sensitive  expression  of  the  sentiment 
of  maternity.  It  reminds  one  especially  of  a  work  by 
one  of  his  scholars,  the  Virgin  of  the  Balances,  in  the 
Louvre,  a  picture  which  has  been  thought  to  repre- 
sent, under  a  veil,  the  blessing  of  universal  nature,  and 
in  which  the  sleepy-looking  heads,  with  a  peculiar 
grace  and  refinement  of  somewhat  advanced  life  in 
them,  have  just  this  half-weary  posture.  We  see  here, 
then,  the  Here  of  the  world  below,  the  Stygian  Juno, 
the  chief  of  those  Elysian  matrons  who  come  crowd- 
ing, in  the  poem  of  Claudian,  to  the  marriage  toilet  of 
Proserpine,  the  goddess  of  the  fertility  of  the  earth 


152  THE  MYTH   OF 

and  of  all  creatures,  but  still  of  fertility  as  arisen  out 
of  death ; T  and  therefore  she  is  not  without  a  certain 
pensiveness,  having  seen  the  seed  fall  into  the  ground 
and  die,  many  times.  Persephone  is  returned  to  her, 
and  the  hair  spreads,  like  a  rich  harvest,  over  her 
shoulders ;  but  she  is  still  veiled,  and  knows  that  the 
seed  must  fall  into  the  ground  again,  and  Persephone 
descend  again  from  her. 

The  statues  of  the  supposed  priestess,  and  of  the 
enthroned  Demeter,  are  of  more  than  the  size  of  life ; 
the  figure  of  Persephone  is  but  seventeen  inches  high, 
a  daintily  handled  toy  of  Parian  marble,  the  miniature 
copy  perhaps  of  a  much  larger  work,  which  might 
well  be  reproduced  on  a  magnified  scale.  The  con- 
ception of  Demeter  is  throughout  chiefly  human,  and 
even  domestic,  though  never  without  a  hieratic  inter- 
est, because  she  is  not  a  goddess  only,  but  also  a 
priestess.  In  contrast,  Persephone  is  wholly  un- 
earthly, the  close  companion,  and  even  the  confused 
double,  of  Hecate,  the  goddess  of  midnight  terrors,  — 
Despcena,  —  the  final  mistress  of  all  that  lives ;  and 
as  sorrow  is  the  characteristic  sentiment  of  Demeter, 
so  awe  of  Persephone.  She  is  compact  of  sleep,  and 
death,  and  flowers,  but  of  narcotic  flowers  especially, 

1  "  Pallere  ligustra, 
Exspirare  rosas,  decrescere  lilia  vidi." 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  153 

—  a  revenanf,  who  in  the  garden  of  Aidoneus  has 
eaten  of  the  pomegranate,  and  bears  always  the 
secret  of  decay  in  her,  of  return  to  the  grave,  in 
the  mystery  of  those  swallowed  seeds;  sometimes, 
in  later  work,  holding  in  her  hand  the  key  of  the 
great  prison-house,  but  which  unlocks  all  secrets  also ; 
(there,  finally,  or  through  oracles  revealed  in  dreams  ;) 
sometimes,  like  Demeter,  the  poppy,  emblem  of  sleep 
and  death  by  its  narcotic  juices,  of  life  and  resurrec- 
tion by  its  innumerable  seeds,  of  the  dreams,  there- 
fore, that  may  intervene  between  falling  asleep  and 
waking.  Treated  as  it  is  in  the  Homeric  hymn,  and 
still  more  in  this  statue,  the  image  of  Persephone  may 
be  regarded  as  the  result  of  many  efforts  to  lift  the 
old  Chthonian  gloom,  still  lingering  on  in  heavier 
souls,  concerning  the  grave,  to  connect  it  with  impres- 
sions of  dignity  and  beauty,  and  a  certain  sweetness 
even ;  it  is  meant  to  make  men  in  love,  or  at  least  at 
peace,  with  death.  The  Persephone  of  Praxiteles' 
school,  then,  is  Aphrodite -Persephone,  Venus- Libitina. 
Her  shadowy  eyes  have  gazed  upon  the  fainter  colour- 
ing of  the  under-world,  and  the  tranquillity,  born  of  it, 
has  "  passed  into  her  face  "  ;  for  the  Greek  Hades  is, 
after  all,  but  a  quiet,  twilight  place,  not  very  different 
from  that  House  of  Fame  where  Dante  places  the  great 
souls  of  the  classical  world ;  Aidoneus  himself  being 


154  THE  MYTH  OF 

conceived,  in  the  highest  Greek  sculpture,  as  but  a 
gentler  Zeus,  the  great  innkeeper ;  so  that  when  a  cer- 
tain Greek  sculptor  had  failed  in  his  portraiture  of 
Zeus,  because  it  had  too  little  hilarity,  too  little,  in 
the  eyes  and  brow,  of  the  open  and  cheerful  sky,  he 
only  changed  its  title,  and  the  thing  passed  excel- 
lently, with  its  heavy  locks  and  shadowy  eyebrows,  for 
the  god  of  the  dead.  The  image  of  Persephone,  then, 
as  it  is  here  composed,  with  the  tall,  tower-like  head- 
dress, from  which  the  veil  depends  —  the  corn-basket, 
originally  carried  thus  by  the  Greek  women,  balanced 
on  the  head  —  giving  the  figure  unusual  length,  has 
the  air  of  a  body  bound  about  with  grave-clothes ; 
while  the  archaic  hands  and  feet,  and  a  certain  stiff- 
ness in  the  folds  of  the  drapery,  give  it  something  of 
a  hieratic  character,  and  to  the  modern  observer  may 
suggest  a  sort  of  kinship  with  the  more  chastened  kind 
of  Gothic  work.  But  quite  of  the  school  of  Praxiteles 
is  the  general  character  of  the  composition ;  the 
graceful  waving  of  the  hair,  the  fine  shadows  of  the 
little  face,  of  the  eyes  and  lips  especially,  like 
the  shadows  of  a  flower  —  a  flower  risen  noiselessly 
from  its  dwelling  in  the  dust  —  though  still  with  that 
fulness  or  heaviness  in  the  brow,  as  of  sleepy  people, 
which,  in  the  delicate  gradations  of  Greek  sculpture, 
distinguish  the  infernal  deities  from  their  Olympian 


DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE  155 

kindred.  The  object  placed  in  the  hand  may  be, 
perhaps,  a  stiff,  archaic  flower,  but  is  probably  the 
partly  consumed  pomegranate  —  one  morsel  gone ; 
the  most  usual  emblem  of  Persephone  being  this 
mystical  fruit,  which,  because  of  the  multitude  of  its 
seeds,  was  to  the  Romans  a  symbol  of  fecundity,  and 
was  sold  at  the  doors  of  the  temple  of  Ceres,  that  the 
women  might  offer  it  there,  and  bear  numerous  chil- 
dren ;  and  so,  to  the  middle  age,  became  a  symbol  of 
the  fruitful  earth  itself;  and  then  of  that  other  seed 
sown  in  the  dark  under-world ;  and  at  last  of  that 
whole  hidden  region,  so  thickly  sown,  which  Dante 
visited,  Michelino  painting  him,  in  the  Duomo  of 
Florence,  with  this  fruit  in  his  hand,  and  Botticelli 
putting  it  into  the  childish  hands  of  Him,  who,  if  men 
"  go  down  into  hell,  is  there  also." 

There  is  an  attractiveness  in  these  goddesses  of  the 
earth,  akin  to  the  influence  of  cool  places,  quiet  houses, 
subdued  light,  tranquillizing  voices.  What  is  there  in 
this  phase  of  ancient  religion  for  us,  at  the  present 
day?  The  myth  of  Demeter  and  Persephone,  then, 
illustrates  the  power  of  the  Greek  religion  as  a  religion 
of  pure  ideas  —  of  conceptions,  which  having  no  link 
on  historical  fact,  yet,  because  they  arose  naturally  out 
of  the  spirit  of  man,  and  embodied,  in  adequate  sym- 
bols, his  deepest  thoughts  concerning  the  conditions 


156    THE   MYTH   OF   DEMETER  AND   PERSEPHONE 

of  his  physical  and  spiritual  life,  maintained  their  hold 
through  many  changes,  and  are  still  not  without  a  sol- 
emnising power  even  for  the  modern  mind,  which  has 
once  admitted  them  as  recognised  and  habitual  inhabi- 
tants ;  and,  abiding  thus  for  the  elevation  and  purifying 
of  our  sentiments,  long  after  the  earlier  and  simpler 
races  of  their  worshippers  have  passed  away,  they  may 
be  a  pledge  to  us  of  the  place  in  our  culture,  at  once 
legitimate  and  possible,  of  the  associations,  the  con- 
ceptions, the  imagery,  of  Greek  religious  poetry  in 
general,  of  the  poetry  of  all  religions. 


HIPPOLYTUS    VEILED 


A  STUDY  FROM   EURIPIDES 

CENTURIES  of  zealous  archaeology  notwithstanding, 
many  phases  of  the  so  varied  Greek  genius  are  recorded 
for  the  modern  student  in  a  kind  of  shorthand  only, 
or  not  at  all.  Even  for  Pausanias,  visiting  Greece 
before  its  direct  part  in  affairs  was  quite  played  out, 
much  had  perished  or  grown  dim  —  of  its  art,  of  the 
truth  of  its  outward  history,  above  all  of  its  religion 
as  a  credible  or  practicable  thing.  And  yet  Pausanias 
visits  Greece  under  conditions  as  favourable  for  obser- 
vation as  those  under  which  later  travellers,  Addison 
or  Eustace,  proceed  to  Italy.  For  him  the  impress 
of  life  in  those  old  Greek  cities  is  not  less  vivid  and 
entire  than  that  of  medieval  Italy  to  ourselves;  at 
Siena,  for  instance,  with  its  ancient  palaces  still  in 
occupation,  its  public  edifices  as  serviceable  as  if  the 
old  republic  had  but  just  now  vacated  them,  the  tra- 
157 


158  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

dition  of  their  primitive  worship  still  unbroken  in  its 
churches.  Had  the  opportunities  in  which  Pausanias 
was  fortunate  been  ours,  how  many  haunts  of  the 
antique  Greek  life  unnoticed  by  him  we  should  have 
peeped  into,  minutely  systematic  in  our  painstaking  ! 
how  many  a  view  would  broaden  out  where  he  notes 
hardly  anything  at  all  on  his  map  of  Greece  ! 

One  of  the  most  curious  phases  of  Greek  civilisation 
which  has  thus  perished  for  us,  and  regarding  which, 
as  we  may  fancy,  we  should  have  made  better  use  of 
that  old  traveller's  facilities,  is  the  early  Attic  deme- 
life  —  its  picturesque,  intensely  localised  variety,  in  the 
hollow  or  on  the  spur  of  mountain  or  sea-shore ;  and 
with  it  many  a  relic  of  primitive  religion,  many  an  early 
growth  of  art  parallel  to  what  Vasari  records  of  artis- 
tic beginnings  in  the  smaller  cities  of  Italy.  Colonus 
and  Acharnae,  surviving  still  so  vividly  by  the  magic 
of  Sophocles,  of  Aristophanes,  are  but  isolated  exam- 
ples of  a  wide-spread  manner  of  life,  in  which,  amid 
many  provincial  peculiarities,  the  first,  yet  perhaps 
the  most  costly  and  telling  steps  were  made  in  all  the 
various  departments  of  Greek  culture.  Even  in  the 
days  of  Pausanias,  Piraeus  was  still  traceable  as  a  dis- 
tinct township,  once  the  possible  rival  of  Athens,  with 
its  little  old  covered  market  by  the  seaside,  and  the 
symbolical  picture  of  the  place,  its  Genius,  visible  on 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  159 

the  wall.  And  that  is  but  the  type  of  what  there  had 
been  to  know  of  threescore  and  more  village  commu- 
nities, each  having  its  own  altars,  its  special  worship 
and  place  of  civic  assembly,  its  trade  and  crafts,  its 
name  drawn  from  physical  peculiarity  or  famous  inci- 
dent, its  body  of  heroic  tradition.  Lingering  on  while 
Athens,  the  great  deme,  gradually  absorbed  into  itself 
more  and  more  of  their  achievements,  and  passing 
away  almost  completely  as  political  factors  in  the 
Peloponnesian  war,  they  were  still  felt,  we  can  hardly 
doubt,  in  the  actual  physiognomy  of  Greece.  That 
variety  in  unity,  which  its  singular  geographical  forma- 
tion secured  to  Greece  as  a  whole,  was  at  its  utmost 
in  these  minute  reflexions  of  the  national  character, 
with  all  the  relish  of  local  difference  —  new  art,  new 
poetry,  fresh  ventures  in  political  combination,  in  the 
conception  of  life,  springing  as  if  straight  from  the 
soil,  like  the  thorn-blossom  of  early  spring  in  magic 
lines  over  all  that  rocky  land.  On  the  other  hand,  it 
was  just  here  that  ancient  habits  clung  most  tena- 
ciously —  that  old-fashioned,  homely,  delightful  exist- 
ence, to  which  the  refugee,  pent  up  in  Athens  in  the 
years  of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  looked  back  so 
fondly.  If  the  impression  of  Greece  generally  is  but 
enhanced  by  the  littleness  of  the  physical  scene  of 
events  intellectually  so  great  —  such  a  system  of  grand 


160  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

lines,  restrained  within  so  narrow  a  compass,  as  in  one 
of  its  fine  coins  —  still  more  would  this  be  true  of  those 
centres  of  country  life.  Here,  certainly,  was  that 
assertion  of  seemingly  small  interests,  which  brings 
into  free  play,  and  gives  his  utmost  value  to,  the  indi- 
vidual ;  making  his  warfare,  equally  with  his  more 
peaceful  rivalries,  deme  against  deme,  the  mountain 
against  the  plain,  the  sea-shore,  (as  in  our  own  old  Bor- 
der life,  but  played  out  here  by  wonderfully  gifted  peo- 
ple) tangible  as  a  personal  history,  to  the  doubling  of  its 
fascination  for  those  whose  business  is  with  the  survey 
of  the  dramatic  side  of  life. 

As  with  civil  matters,  so  it  was  also,  we  may  fairly 
suppose,  with  religion ;  the  deme-life  was  a  manifesta- 
tion of  religious  custom  and  sentiment,  in  all  their 
primitive  local  variety.  As  Athens,  gradually  drawing 
into  itself  the  various  elements  of  provincial  culture, 
developed,  with  authority,  the  central  religious  posi- 
tion, the  demes-men  did  but  add  the  worship  of 
Athene  Polias,  the  goddess  of  the  capital,  to  their  own 
pre-existent  ritual  uses.  Of  local  and  central  religion 
alike,  time  and  circumstance  had  obliterated  much 
when  Pausanias  came.  A  devout  spirit,  with  religion 
for  his  chief  interest,  eager  for  the  trace  of  a  divine 
footstep,  anxious  even  in  the  days  of  Lucian  to  deal 
seriously  with  what  had  counted  for  so  much  to  serious 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  161 

men,  he  has,  indeed,  to  lament  that  "  Pan  is  dead  :  "  — 
"They  come  no  longer!"  —  "These  things  happen 
no  longer  !  "  But  the  Greek  —  his  very  name  also, 
Hellen,  was  the  title  of  a  priesthood  —  had  been  relig- 
ious abundantly,  sanctifying  every  detail  of  his  actual 
life  with  the  religious  idea ;  and  as  Pausanias  goes  on 
his  way  he  finds  many  a  remnant  of  that  earlier  estate 
of  religion,  when,  as  he  fancied,  it  had  been  nearer 
the  gods,  as  it  was  certainly  nearer  the  earth.  It  is 
marked,  even  in  decay,  with  varieties  of  place ;  and 
is  not  only  continuous  but  in  situ.  At  Phigaleia  he 
makes  his  offerings  to  Demeter,  agreeably  to  the  pater- 
nal rites  of  the  inhabitants,  wax,  fruit,  undressed  wool 
"  still  full  of  the  sordes  of  the  sheep."  A  dream  from 
heaven  cuts  short  his  notice  of  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis. 
He  sees  the  stone,  "  big  enough  for  a  little  man,"  on 
which  Silenus  was  used  to  sit  and  rest ;  at  Athens,  the 
tombs  of  the  Amazons,  of  the  purple-haired  Nisus,  of 
Deucalion;  —  "it  is  a  manifest  token  that  he  had 
dwelt  there."  The  worshippers  of  Poseidon,  even  at 
his  temple  among  the  hills,  might  still  feel  the  earth 
fluctuating  beneath  their  feet.  And  in  care  for  divine 
things,  he  tells  us,  the  Athenians  outdid  all  other 
Greeks.  Even  in  the  days  of  Nero  it  revealed  itself 
oddly ;  and  it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  of  this  temper 
the  demes,  as  the  proper  home  of  conservatism,  were 

M 


162  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

exceptionally  expressive.  Scattered  in  those  remote, 
romantic  villages,  among  their  olives  or  sea-weeds,  lay 
the  heroic  graves,  the  relics,  the  sacred  images,  often 
rude  enough  amid  the  delicate  tribute  of  later  art; 
this  too  oftentimes  finding  in  such  retirement  its  best 
inspirations,  as  in  some  Attic  Fiesole.  Like  a  network 
over  the  land  of  gracious  poetic  tradition,  as  also  of 
undisturbed  ceremonial  usage  surviving  late  for  those 
who  cared  to  seek  it,  the  local  religions  had  been  never 
wholly  superseded  by  the  worship  of  the  great  national 
temples.  They  were,  in  truth,  the  most  character- 
istic developments  of  a  faith  essentially  earth-born 
or  indigenous. 

And  how  often  must  the  student  of  fine  art,  again, 
wish  he  had  the  same  sort  of  knowledge  about  its 
earlier  growth  in  Greece,  that  he  actually  possesses  in 
the  case  of  Italian  art !  Given  any  development  at 
all  in  this  matter,  there  must  have  been  phases  of  art, 
which,  if  immature,  were  also  veritable  expressions  of 
power  to  come,  intermediate  discoveries  of  beauty, 
such  as  are  by  no  means  a  mere  anticipation,  and  of 
service  only  as  explaining  historically  larger  subse- 
quent achievements,  but  of  permanent  attractiveness 
in  themselves,  being  often,  indeed,  the  true  maturity  of 
certain  amiable  artistic  qualities.  And  in  regard  to 
Greek  art  at  its  best  —  the  Parthenon  —  no  less  than 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  163 

to  the  art  of  the  Renaissance  at  its  best  —  the  Sistine 
Chapel  —  the  more  instructive  light  would  be  derived 
rather  from  what  precedes  than  what  follows  such 
central  success,  from  the  determination  to  apprehend 
the  fulfilment  of  past  effort  rather  than  the  eve  of  de- 
cline, in  the  critical,  central  moment  which  partakes 
of  both.  Of  such  early  promise,  early  achievement, 
we  have  in  the  case  of  Greek  art  little  to  compare  with 
what  is  extant  of  the  youth  of  the  arts  in  Italy.  Over- 
beck's  careful  gleanings  of  its  history  form  indeed  a 
sorry  relic  as  contrasted  with  Vasari's  intimations  of 
the  beginnings  of  the  Renaissance.  Fired  by  certain 
fragments  of  its  earlier  days,  of  a  beauty,  in  truth, 
absolute,  and  vainly  longing  for  more,  the  student  of 
Greek  sculpture  indulges  the  thought  of  an  ideal  of 
youthful  energy  therein,  yet  withal  of  youthful  self- 
restraint  ;  and  again,  as  with  survivals  of  old  religion, 
the  privileged  home,  he  fancies,  of  that  ideal  must 
have  been  in  those  venerable  Attic  townships,  as  to 
a  large  extent  it  passed  away  with  them. 

The  budding  of  new  art,  the  survival  of  old  religion, 
at  isolated  centres  of  provincial  life,  where  varieties 
of  human  character  also  were  keen,  abundant,  asserted 
in  correspondingly  effective  incident  —  this  is  what 
irresistible  fancy  superinduces  on  historic  details, 
themselves  meagre  enough.  The  sentiment  of  antiq- 


164  HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED 

uity  is  indeed  a  characteristic  of  all  cultivated  peo- 
ple, even  in  what  may  seem  the  freshest  ages,  and  not 
exclusively  a  humour  of  our  later  world.  In  the 
earliest  notices  about  them,  as  we  know,  the  people 
of  Attica  appear  already  impressed  by  the  immense 
antiquity  of  their  occupation  of  its  soil,  of  which  they 
claim  to  be  the  very  first  flower.  Some  at  least  of 
those  old  demes-men  we  may  well  fancy  sentimentally 
reluctant  to  change  their  habits,  fearful  of  losing  too 
much  of  themselves  in  the  larger  stream  of  life,  cling- 
ing to  what  is  antiquated  as  the  work  of  centralisation 
goes  on,  needful  as  that  work  was,  with  the  great 
"  Eastern  difficulty "  already  ever  in  the  distance. 
The  fear  of  Asia,  barbaric,  splendid,  hardly  known, 
yet  haunting  the  curious  imagination  of  those  who  had 
borrowed  thence  the  art  in  which  they  were  rapidly 
excelling  it,  developing,  as  we  now  see,  in  the  interest 
of  Greek  humanity,  crafts  begotten  of  tyrannic  and 
illiberal  luxury,  was  finally  to  suppress  the  rivalries  of 
those  primitive  centres  of  activity,  when  the  "  invin- 
cible armada  "  of  the  common  foe  came  into  sight. 

At  a  later  period  civil  strife  was  to  destroy  their  last 
traces.  The  old  hoplite,  from  Rhamnus  or  Acharnae, 
pent  up  in  beleaguered  Athens  during  that  first  summer 
of  the  Peloponnesian  war,  occupying  with  his  house- 
hold a  turret  of  the  wall,  as  Thucydides  describes  — 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  165 

one  of  many  picturesque  touches  in  that  severe  histo- 
rian —  could  well  remember  the  ancient  provincial  life 
which  this  conflict  with  Sparta  was  bringing  to  an  end. 
He  could  recall  his  boyish,  half-scared  curiosity  con- 
cerning those  Persian  ships,  coming  first  as  merchant- 
men, or  with  pirates  on  occasion,  in  the  half-savage, 
wicked  splendours  of  their  decoration,  the  monstrous 
figure-heads,  their  glittering  freightage.  Men  would 
hardly  have  trusted  their  women  or  children  with  that 
suspicious  crew,  hovering  through  the  dusk.  There 
were  soothsayers,  indeed,  who  had  long  foretold  what 
happened  soon  after,  giving  shape  to  vague,  super- 
natural terrors.  And  then  he  had  crept  from  his  hid- 
ing-place with  other  lads  to  go  view  the  enemies'  slain 
at  Marathon,  beside  those  belated  Spartans,  this  new 
war  with  whom  seemed  to  be  reviving  the  fierce  local 
feuds  of  his  younger  days.  Paraloi  and  Diacrioi  had 
ever  been  rivals.  Very  distant  it  all  seemed  now,  with 
all  the  stories  he  could  tell;  for  in  those  crumbling 
little  towns,  as  heroic  life  had  lingered  on  into  the 
actual,  so,  at  an  earlier  date,  the  supernatural  into  the 
heroic.  Like  mist  at  dawn,  the  last  traces  of  its  divine 
visitors  had  then  vanished  from  the  land,  where,  how- 
ever, they  had  already  begotten  "  our  best  and  oldest 
families." 

It 'was  Theseus,  uncompromising  young  master  of 


166  HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED 

the  situation,  in  fearless  application  of  "the  modern 
spirit "  of  his  day  to  every  phase  of  life  where  it  was 
applicable,  who,  at  the  expense  of  Attica,  had  given 
Athens  a  people,  reluctant  enough,  in  truth,  as  Plutarch 
suggests,  to  desert  "  their  homes  and  religious  usages 
and  many  good  and  gracious  kings  of  their  own  "  for 
this  elect  youth,  who  thus  figures,  passably,  as  a  kind 
of  mythic  shorthand  for  civilisation,  making  roads  and 
the  like,  facilitating  travel,  suppressing  various  forms 
of  violence,  but  many  innocent  things  as  well.  So 
it  must  needs  be  in  a  world  where,  even  hand  in  hand 
with  a  god-assisted  hero,  Justice  goes  blindfold.  He 
slays  the  bull  of  Marathon  and  many  another  local 
tyrant,  but  also  exterminates  that  delightful  creature, 
the  Centaur.  The  Amazon,  whom  Plato  will  reinstate 
as  the  type  of  improved  womanhood,  has  no  better 
luck  than  Phaea,  the  sow-pig  of  Crommyon,  foul  old 
landed-proprietress.  They  exerted,  however,  the  pre- 
rogative of  poetic  protest,  and  survive  thereby.  Cen- 
taur and  Amazon,  as  we  see  them  in  the  fine  art  of 
Greece,  represent  the  regret  of  Athenians  themselves 
for  something  that  could  never  be  brought  to  life  again, 
and  have  their  pathos.  Those  young  heroes  contend- 
ing with  Amazons  on  the  frieze  of  the  Mausoleum 
had  best  make  haste  with  their  bloody  work,  if  young 
people's  eyes  can  tell  a  true  story.  A  type  still  of 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  167 

progress  triumphant  through  injustice,  set  on  improv- 
ing things  off  the  face  of  the  earth,  Theseus  took 
occasion  to  attack  the  Amazons  in  their  mountain 
home,  not  long  after  their  ruinous  conflict  with  Her- 
cules, and  hit  them  when  they  were  down.  That 
greater  bully  had  laboured  off  on  the  world's  highway, 
carrying  with  him  the  official  girdle  of  Antiope,  their 
queen,  gift  of  Ares,  and  therewith,  it  would  seem, 
the  mystic  secret  of  their  strength.  At  sight  of  this 
new  foe,  at  any  rate,  she  came  to  a  strange  submission. 
The  savage  virgin  had  turned  to  very  woman,  and 
was  presently  a  willing  slave,  returning  on  the  gaily 
appointed  ship  in  all  haste  to  Athens,  where  in  sup- 
posed wedlock  she  bore  King  Theseus  a  son. 

With  their  annual  visit  —  visit  to  the  Gargareans  !  — 
for  the  purpose  of  maintaining  their  species,  parting 
with  their  boys  early,  these  husbandless  women  could 
hardly  be  supposed  a  very  happy,  certainly  not  a  very 
joyous  people.  They  figure  rather  as  a  sorry  measure 
of  the  luck  of  the  female  sex  in  taking  a  hard  natural 
law  into  their  own  hands,  and  by  abnegation  of  all 
tender  companionship  making  shift  with  bare  inde- 
pendence, as  a  kind  of  second-best  —  the  best  practi- 
cable by  them  in  the  imperfect  actual  condition  of 
things.  But  the  heart- strings  would  ache  still  where 
the  breast  had  been  cut  away.  The  sisters  of  Antiope 


168  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

had  come,  not  immediately,  but  in  careful  array  of 
battle,  to  bring  back  the  captive.  All  along  the 
weary  roads  from  the  Caucasus  to  Attica,  their 
traces  had  remained  in  the  great  graves  of  those 
who  died  by  the  way.  Against  the  little  remnant, 
carrying  on  the  fight  to  the  very  midst  of  Athens, 
Antiope  herself  had  turned,  all  other  thoughts  trans- 
formed now  into  wild  idolatry  of  her  hero.  Super- 
stitious, or  in  real  regret,  the  Athenians  never  forgot 
their  tombs.  As  for  Antiope,  the  consciousness  of  her 
perfidy  remained  with  her,  adding  the  pang  of  remorse 
to  her  own  desertion,  when  King  Theseus,  with  his 
accustomed  bad  faith  to  women,  set  her,  too,  aside  in 
turn.  Phaedra,  the  true  wife,  was  there,  peeping  sus- 
piciously at  her  rival ;  and  even  as  Antiope  yielded 
to  her  lord's  embraces  the  thought  had  come  that  a 
male  child  might  be  the  instrument  of  her  anger,  and 
one  day  judge  her  cause. 

In  one  of  these  doomed,  decaying  villages,  then, 
King  Theseus  placed  the  woman  and  her  babe, 
hidden,  yet  secure,  within  the  Attic  border,  as  men 
veil  their  mistakes  or  crimes.  They  might  pass  away, 
they  and  their  story,  together  with  the  memory  of 
other  antiquated  creatures  of  such  places,  who  had 
had  connubial  dealings  with  the  stars.  The  white, 
paved  waggon-track,  a  by-path  of  the  sacred  way  to 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  169 

Eleusis,  zigzagged  through  sloping  olive-yards,  from 
the  plain  of  silvered  blue,  with  Athens  building  in  the 
distance,  and  passed  the  door  of  the  rude  stone  house, 
furnished  scantily,  which  no  one  had  ventured  to 
inhabit  of  late  years  till  they  came  there.  On  the 
ledges  of  the  grey  cliffs  above,  the  laurel  groves,  stem 
and  foliage  of  motionless  bronze,  had  spread  their 
tents.  Travellers  bound  northwards  were  glad  to 
repose  themselves  there,  and  take  directions,  or  pro- 
vision for  their  journey  onwards,  from  the  highland 
people,  who  came  down  hither  to  sell  their  honey, 
their  cheese,  and  woollen  stuff,  in  the  tiny  market- 
place. At  dawn  the  great  stars  seemed  to  halt  a 
while,  burning  as  if  for  sacrifice  to  some  pure  deity, 
on  those  distant,  obscurely  named  heights,  like 
broken  swords,  the  rim  of  the  world.  A  little  later 
you  could  just  see  the  newly  opened  quarries,  like 
streaks  of  snow  on  their  russet-brown  bosoms. 
Thither  in  spring-time  all  eyes  turned  from  Athens 
devoutly,  intent  till  the  first  shaft  of  lightning  gave 
signal  for  the  departure  of  the  sacred  ship  to  Delos. 
Racing  over  those  rocky  surfaces,  the  virgin  air  de- 
scended hither  with  the  secret  of  profound  sleep,  as 
the  child  lay  in  its  cubicle  hewn  in  the  stone,  the 
white  fleeces  heaped  warmly  round  him.  In  the  wild 
Amazon's  soul,  to  her  surprise,  and  at  first  against 


170  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

her  will,  the  maternal  sense  had  quickened  from  the 
moment  of  his  conception,  and,  (thatr  burst  of  angry 
tears  with  which  she  had  received  him  into  the  world 
once  dried  up)  kindling  more  eagerly  at  every  token 
of  manly  growth,  had  at  length  driven  out  every  other 
feeling.  And  this  animal  sentiment,  educating  the 
human  hand  and  heart  in  her,  had  become  a  moral 
one,  when,  King  Theseus  leaving  her  in  anger,  visibly 
unkind,  the  child  had  crept  to  her  side,  and  tracing 
with  small  fingers  the  wrinkled  lines  of  her  woe-begone 
brow,  carved  there  as  if  by  a  thousand  years  of  sorrow, 
had  sown  between  himself  and  her  the  seed  of  an  un- 
dying sympathy. 

She  was  thus  already  on  the  watch  for  a  host  of 
minute  recognitions  on  his  part,  of  the  self-sacrifice 
involved  in  her  devotion  to  a  career  of  which  she  must 
needs  drain  out  the  sorrow,  careful  that  he  might  taste 
only  the  joy.  So  far,  amid  their  spare  living,  the  child, 
as  if  looking  up  to  the  warm  broad  wing  of  her  love 
above  him,  seemed  replete  with  comfort.  Yet  in  his 
moments  of  childish  sickness,  the  first  passing  shadows 
upon  the  deep  joy  of  her  motherhood,  she  teaches  him 
betimes  to  soothe  or  cheat  pain  —  little  bodily  pains 
only,  hitherto.  She  ventures  sadly  to  assure  him  of 
the  harsh  necessities  of  life  :  "  Courage,  child  !  Every 
one  must  take  his  share  of  suffering.  Shift  not  thy 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  171 

body  so  vehemently.      Pain,  taken  quietly,  is  easier 
to  bear." 

Carefully  inverting  the  habits  of  her  own  rude 
childhood,  she  learned  to  spin  the  wools,  white  and 
grey,  to  clothe  and  cover  him  pleasantly.  The  spec- 
tacle of  his  unsuspicious  happiness,  though  at  present 
a  matter  of  purely  physical  conditions,  awoke  a  strange 
sense  of  poetry,  a  kind  of  artistic  sense  in  her,  watch- 
ing, as  her  own  long-deferred  recreation  in  life,  his 
delight  in  the  little  delicacies  she  prepared  to  his 
liking  —  broiled  kids'  flesh,  the  red  wine,  the  mush- 
rooms sought  through  the  early  dew  —  his  hunger  and 
thirst  so  daintily  satisfied,  as  he  sat  at  table,  like  the 
first-born  of  King  Theseus,  with  two  wax-lights  and 
a  fire  at  dawn  or  nightfall  dancing  to  the  prattle  and 
laughter,  a  bright  child,  never  stupidly  weary.  At 
times  his  very  happiness  would  seem  to  her  like  a 
menace  of  misfortune  to  come.  Was  there  not  with 
herself  the  curse  of  that  unsisterly  action?  and  not 
far  from  him,  the  terrible  danger  of  the  father's,  the 
step-mother's  jealousy,  the  mockery  of  those  half- 
brothers  to  come  ?  Ah  !  how  perilous  for  happiness 
the  sensibilities  which  make  him  so  exquisitely  happy 
now  !  Before  they  started  on  their  dreadful  visit  to 
the  Minotaur,  says  Plutarch,  the  women  told  their 
sons  many  tales  and  other  things  to  encourage  them ; 


172  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

and,  even  as  she  had  furnished  the  child  betimes  with 
rules  for  the  solace  of  bodily  pain,  so  now  she  would 
have  brought  her  own  sad  experience  into  service  in 
precepts  for  the  ejection  of  its  festering  power  out  of 
any  other  trouble  that  might  visit  him.  Already  those 
little  disappointments  which  are  as  the  shadow  beside 
all  conscious  enjoyment,  were  rio  petty  things  to  her, 
but  had  for  her  their  pathos,  as  children's  troubles  will 
have,  in  spite  of  the  longer  chance  before  them.  They 
were  as  the  first  steps  in  a  long  story  of  deferred  hopes, 
or  anticipations  of  death  itself  and  the  end  of  them. 

The  gift  of  Ares  gone,  the  mystic  girdle  she  would 
fain  have  transferred  to  the  child,  that  bloody  god  of 
storm  and  battle,  hereditary  patron  of  her  house, 
faded  from  her  thoughts  together  with  the  memory  of 
her  past  life  —  the  more  completely,  because  another 
familiar  though  somewhat  forbidding  deity,  accepting 
certainly  a  cruel  and  forbidding  worship,  was  already 
in  possession,  and  reigning  in  the  new  home  when  she 
came  thither.  Only,  thanks  to  some  kindly  local 
influence,  (by  grace,  say,  of  its  delicate  air)  Artemis, 
this  other  god  she  had  known  in  the  Scythian  wilds, 
had  put  aside  her  fierce  ways,  as  she  paused  awhile 
on  her  heavenly  course  among  these  ancient  abodes  of 
men,  gliding  softly,  mainly  through  their  dreams,  with 
abundance  of  salutary  touches.  Full,  in  truth,  of 


HIPFOLYTUS   VEILED  173 

grateful  memory  of  some  timely  service  at  human 
hands  !  In  these  highland  villages  the  tradition  of 
celestial  visitants  clung  fondly,  of  god  or  hero,  belated 
or  misled  on  long  journeys,  yet  pleased  to  be  among 
the  sons  of  men,  as  their  way  led  them  up  the  steep, 
narrow,  crooked  street,  condescending  to  rest  a  little, 
as  one,  under  some  sudden  stress  not  clearly  ascer- 
tained, had  done  here,  in  this  very  house,  thereafter 
for  ever  sacred.  The  place  and  its  inhabitants,  of 
course,  had  been  something  bigger  in  the  days  of 
those  old  mythic  hospitalities,  unless,  indeed,  divine 
persons  took  kindly  the  will  for  the  deed  —  very 
different,  surely,  from  the  present  condition  of  things, 
for  there  was  little  here  to  detain  a  delicate  traveller, 
even  in  the  abode  of  Antiope  and  her  son,  though  it 
had  been  the  residence  of  a  king. 

Hard  by  stood  the  chapel  of  the  goddess,  who  had 
thus  adorned  the  place  with  her  memories.  The 
priests,  indeed,  were  already  departed  to  Athens, 
carrying  with  them  the  ancient  image,  the  vehicle 
of  her  actual  presence,  as  the  surest  means  of  en- 
riching the  capital  at  the  expense  of. the  country, 
where  she  must  now  make  poor  shift  of  the  occa- 
sional worshipper  on  his  way  through  these  mountain 
passes.  But  safely  roofed  beneath  the  sturdy  tiles  of 
grey  Hymettus  marble,  upon  the  walls  of  the  little 


174  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

square  recess  enclosing  the  deserted  pedestal,  a  series 
of  crowded  imageries,  in  the  devout  spirit  of  earlier 
days,  were  eloquent  concerning  her.  Here  from  scene 
to  scene,  touched  with  silver  among  the  wild  and 
human  creatures  in  dun  bronze,  with  the  moon's  disk 
around  her  head,  shrouded  closely,  the  goddess  of  the 
chase  still  glided  mystically  through  all  the  varied 
incidents  of  her  story,  in  all  the  detail  of  a  written 
book. 

A  book  for  the  delighted  reading  of  a  scholar,  will- 
ing to  ponder  at  leisure,  to  make  his  way  surely,  and 
understand.  Very  different,  certainly,  from  the  cruel- 
featured  little  idol  his  mother  had  brought  in  her  bun- 
dle— the  old  Scythian  Artemis,  hanging  there  on  the 
wall,  side  by  side  with  the  forgotten  Ares,  blood-red, — 
the  goddess  reveals  herself  to  the  lad,  poring  through 
the  dusk  by  taper-light,  as  at  once  a  virgin,  necessa- 
rily therefore  the  creature  of  solitude,  yet  also  as 
the  assiduous  nurse  of  children,  and  patroness  of  the 
young.  Her  friendly  intervention  at  the  act  of  birth 
everywhere,  her  claim  upon  the  nursling,  among  tame 
and  wild  creatures  equally,  among  men  as  among  gods, 
nay  !  among  the  stars  (upon  the  very  star  of  dawn), 
gave  her  a  breadth  of  influence  seemingly  co-extensive 
with  the  sum  of  things.  Yes !  his  great  mother  was 
in  touch  with  everything.  Yet  throughout  he  can  but 


H1PPOLYTUS  VEILED  175 

note  her  perpetual  chastity,  with  pleasurable  though 
half- suspicious  wonder  at  the  mystery,  he  knows  not 
what,  involved  therein,  as  though  he  awoke  suddenly 
in  some  distant,  unexplored  region  of  her  person  and 
activity.  Why  the  lighted  torch  always,  and  that  long 
straight  vesture  rolled  round  so  formally  ?  Was  it  only 
against  the  cold  of  these  northern  heights  ? 

To  her,  nevertheless,  her  maternity,  her  solitude, 
to  this  virgin  mother,  who,  with  no  husband,  no  lover, 
no  fruit  of  her  own,  is  so  tender  to  the  children  of 
others,  in  a  full  heart  he  devotes  himself  —  his  im- 
maculate body  and  soul.  Dedicating  himself  thus,  he 
has  the  sense  also  that  he  becomes  more  entirely  than 
ever  the  chevalier  of  his  mortal  mother,  of  her  sad 
cause.  The  devout,  diligent  hands  clear  away  care- 
fully the  dust,  the  faded  relics  of  her  former  worship  ; 
a  worship  renewed  once  more  as  the  sacred  spring, 
set  free  from  encumbrance,  in  answer  to  his  willing 
ministries  murmurs  again  under  the  dim  vault  in  its 
marble  basin,  work  of  primitive  Titanic  fingers  —  flows 
out  through  its  rocky  channel,  filling  the  whole  town- 
ship with  chaste  thoughts  of  her. 

Through  much  labour  at  length  he  comes  to  the 
veritable  story  of  her  birth,  like  a  gift  direct  from  the 
goddess  herself  to  this  loyal  soul.  There  were  those 
in  later  times  who,  like  ^Eschylus,  knew  Artemis  as 


176  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

the  daughter  not  of  Leto  but  of  Demeter,  according 
to  the  version  of  her  history  now  conveyed  to  the 
young  Hippolytus,  together  with  some  deepened 
insight  into  her  character.  The  goddess  of  Eleusis, 
on  a  journey,  in  the  old  days  when,  as  Plato  says, 
men  lived  nearer  the  gods,  finding  herself  with  child 
by  some  starry  inmate  of  those  high  places,  had  lain 
down  in  the  rock-hewn  cubicle  of  the  inner  chamber, 
and,  certainly  in  sorrow,  brought  forth  a  daughter. 
Here  was  the  secret  at  once  of  the  genial,  all-embrac- 
ing maternity  of  this  new  strange  Artemis,  and  of 
those  more  dubious  tokens,  the  lighted  torch,  the 
winding-sheet,  the  arrow  of  death  on  the  string  —  of 
sudden  death,  truly,  which  may  be  thought  after  all 
the  kindest,  as  prevenient  of  all  disgraceful  sickness 
or  waste  in  the  unsullied  limbs.  For  the  late  birth 
into  the  world  of  this  so  shadowy  daughter  was  some- 
how identified  with  the  sudden  passing  into  Hades 
of  her  first-born,  Persephone.  As  he  scans  those 
scenes  anew,  an  awful  surmise  comes  to  him ;  his 
divine  patroness  moves  there  as  death,  surely.  Still, 
however,  gratefully  putting  away  suspicion,  he  seized 
even  in  these  ambiguous  imageries  their  happier  sug- 
gestions, satisfied  in  thinking  of  his  new  mother  as  but 
the  giver  of  sound  sleep,  of  the  benign  night,  whence 
—  mystery  of  mysteries  !  —  good  things  are  born 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  177 

softly,  from  which  he  awakes  betimes  for  his  healthful 
service  to  her.  Either  way,  sister  of  Apollo  or  sister 
of  Persephone,  to  him  she  should  be  a  power  of  sanity, 
sweet  as  the  flowers  he  offered  her  gathered  at  dawn, 
setting  daily  their  purple  and  white  frost  against  her 
ancient  marbles.  There  was  more  certainly  than  the 
first  breath  of  day  in  them.  Was  there  here  some- 
thing of  her  person,  her  sensible  presence,  by  way  of 
direct  response  to  him  in  his  early  devotion,  astir  for 
her  sake  before  the  very  birds,  nesting  here  so  freely, 
the  quail  above  all,  in  some  privileged  connexion  with 
her  story  still  unfathomed  by  the  learned  youth? 
Amid  them  he  too  found  a  voice,  and  sang  articulately 
the  praises  of  the  great  goddess. 

Those  more  dubious  traits,  nevertheless,  so  lightly 
disposed  of  by  Hippolytus,  (Hecate  thus  counting  for 
him  as  Artemis  goddess  of  health,)  became  to  his 
mother,  in  the  light  of  her  sad  experience,  the  sum  of 
the  whole  matter.  While  he  drew  only  peaceful 
inducements  to  sleep  from  that  two-sided  figure,  she 
reads  there  a  volume  of  sinister  intentions,  and  liked 
little  this  seemingly  dead  goddess,  who  could  but 
move  among  the  living  banefully,  stealing  with  her 
night-shade  into  the  day  where  she  had  no  proper 
right.  The  gods  had  ever  had  much  to  do  with  the 
shaping  of  her  fortunes  and  the  fortunes  of  her  kin- 


178  HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED 

dred ;  and  the  mortal  mother  felt  nothing  less  than 
jealousy  from  the  hour  when  the  lad  had  first  de- 
lightedly called  her  to  share  his  discoveries,  and  learn 
the  true  story  (if  it  were  not  rather  the  malicious 
counterfeit)  of  the  new  divine  mother  to  whom  he 
has  thus  absolutely  entrusted  himself.  Was  not  this 
absolute  chastity  itself  a  kind  of  death?  She,  too, 
in  secret  makes  her  gruesome  midnight  offering  with 
averted  eyes.  She  dreams  one  night  he  is  in  danger ; 
creeps  to  his  cubicle  to  see ;  the  face  is  covered,  as  he 
lies,  against  the  cold.  She  traces  the  motionless  out- 
line, raises  the  coverlet;  with  the  nice  black  head 
deep  in  the  fleecy  pillow  he  is  sleeping  quietly,  he 
dreams  of  that  other  mother  gliding  in  upon  the 
moonbeam,  and  awaking  turns  sympathetically  upon 
the  living  woman,  is  subdued  in  a  moment  to  the 
expression  of  her  troubled  spirit,  and  understands. 

And  when  the  child  departed  from  her  for  the  first 
time,  springing  from  his  white  bed  before  the  dawn, 
to  accompany  the  elders  on  their  annual  visit  to  the 
Eleusinian  goddess,  the  after-sense  of  his  wonderful 
happiness,  tranquillising  her  in  spite  of  herself  by  its 
genial  power  over  the  actual  moment,  stirred  neverthe- 
less a  new  sort  of  anxiety  for  the  future.  Her  work 
in  life  henceforward  was  defined  as  a  ministry  to  so 
precious  a  gift,  in  full  consciousness  of  its  risk;  it 


HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED  179 

became  her  religion,  the  centre  of  her  pieties.  She 
missed  painfully  his  continual  singing  hovering  about 
the  place,  like  the  earth  itself  made  audible  in  all 
its  humanities.  Half-selfish  for  a  moment,  she  prays 
that  he  may  remain  for  ever  a  child,  to  her  solace ; 
welcomes  now  the  promise  of  his  chastity  (though 
chastity  were  itself  a  kind  of  death)  as  the  pledge  of 
his  abiding  always  with  her.  And  these  thoughts 
were  but  infixed  more  deeply  by  the  sudden  stroke 
of  joy  at  his  return  home  in  ceremonial  trim  and 
grown  more  manly,  with  much  increase  of  self-con- 
fidence in  that  brief  absence  among  his  fellows. 

For,  from  the  first,  the  unwelcome  child,  the  out- 
cast, had  been  successful,  with  that  special  good 
fortune  which  sometimes  attends  the  outcast.  His 
happiness,  his  invincible  happiness,  had  been  found 
engaging,  perhaps  by  the  gods,  certainly  by  men ; 
and  when  King  Theseus  came  to  take  note  how 
things  went  in  that  rough  life  he  had  assigned  them, 
he  felt  a  half  liking  for  the  boy,  and  bade  him  come 
down  to  Athens  and  see  the  sights,  partly  by  way  of 
proof  to  his  already  somewhat  exacting  wife  of  the 
difference  between  the  old  love  and  the  new  as 
measured  by  the  present  condition  of  their  respective 
offspring.  The  fine  nature,  fastidious  by  instinct,  but 
bred  with  frugality  enough  to  find  the  charm  of  con- 


180  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

tinual  surprise  in  that  delicate  new  Athens,  draws,  as 
he  goes,  the  full  savour  of  its  novelties ;  the  marbles, 
the  space  and  finish,  the  busy  gaiety  of  its  streets,  the 
elegance  of  life  there,  contrasting  with  while  it  adds 
some  mysterious  endearment  to  the  thought  of  his 
own  rude  home.  Without  envy,  in  hope  only  one 
day  to  share,  to  win  them  by  kindness,  he  gazes 
on  the  motley  garden-plots,  the  soft  bedding,  the 
showy  toys,  the  delicate  keep  of  the  children  of 
Phsedra,  who  turn  curiously  to  their  half-brother, 
venture  to  touch  his  long  strange  gown  of  homespun 
grey,  like  the  soft  coat  of  some  wild  creature  who 
might  let  one  stroke  it.  Close  to  their  dainty  existence 
for  a  while,  he  regards  it  as  from  afar ;  looks  forward 
all  day  to  the  lights,  the  prattle,  the  laughter,  the 
white  bread,  like  sweet  cake  to  him,  of  their  ordinary 
evening  meal ;  returns  again  and  again,  in  spite  of 
himself,  to  watch,  to  admire,  feeling  a  power  within 
him  to  merit  the  like ;  finds  his  way  back  at  last, 
still  light  of  heart,  to  his  own  poor  fare,  able  to  do 
without  what  he  would  enjoy  so  much.  As,  grateful 
for  his  scanty  part  in  things  —  for  the  make-believe  of 
a  feast  in  the  little  white  loaves  she  too  has  managed 
to  come  by,  sipping  the  thin  white  wine,  he  touches 
her  dearly,  the  mother  is  shocked  with  a  sense  of 
something  unearthly  in  his  contentment,  while  he 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  181 

comes  and  goes,  singing  now  more  abundantly  than 
ever  a  new  canticle  to  her  divine  rival.  Were  things, 
after  all,  to  go  grudgingly  with  him  ?  Sensible  of  that 
curse  on  herself,  with  her  suspicions  of  his  kinsfolk,  of 
this  dubious  goddess  to  whom  he  has  devoted  him- 
self, she  anticipates  with  more  foreboding  than  ever 
his  path  to  be,  with  or  without  a  wife  —  her  own  soli- 
tude, or  his  —  the  painful  heats  and  cold.  She  fears 
even  these  late  successes;  it  were  best  to  veil  their 
heads.  The  strong  as  such  had  ever  been  against  her 
and  hers.  The  father  came  again;  noted  the  boy's 
growth.  Manliest  of  men,  like  Hercules  in  his  cloak 
of  lion's  skin,  he  has  after  all  but  scant  liking,  feels, 
through  a  certain  meanness  of  soul,  scorn  for  the  finer 
likeness  of  himself.  Might  this  creature  of  an  already 
vanishing  world,  who  for  all  his  hard  rearing  had  a 
manifest  distinction  of  character,  one  day  become  his 
rival,  full  of  loyalty  as  he  was  already  to  the  deserted 
mother? 

To  charming  Athens,  nevertheless,  he  crept  back, 
as  occasion  served,  to  gaze  peacefully  on  the  delightful 
good  fortune  of  others,  waiting  for  the  opportunity  to 
take  his  own  turn  with  the  rest,  driving  down  thither 
at  last  in  a  chariot  gallantly,  when  all  the  town  was 
assembled  to  celebrate  the  king's  birthday.  For  the 
goddess,  herself  turning  ever  kinder,  and  figuring  more 


182  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

and  more  exclusively  as  the  tender  nurse  of  all  things, 
had  transformed  her  young  votary  from  a  hunter  into 
a  charioteer,  a  rearer  and  driver  of  horses,  after  the 
fashion  of  his  Amazon  mothers  before  him.  There- 
upon, all  the  lad's  wholesome  vanity  had  centred  on 
the  fancy  of  the  world-famous  games  then  lately  es- 
tablished, as,  smiling  down  his  mother's  terrors,  and 
grateful  to  his  celestial  mother  for  many  a  hair- 
breadth escape,  he  practised  day  by  day,  fed  the 
animals,  drove  them  out,  amused  though  companion- 
less,  visited  them  affectionately  in  the  deserted  stone 
stables  of  the  ancient  king.  A  chariot  and  horses,  as 
being  the  showiest  outward  thing  the  world  afforded, 
was  like  the  pawn  he  moved  to  represent  the  big 
demand  he  meant  to  make,  honestly,  generously,  on 
the  ample  fortunes  of  life.  There  was  something  of 
his  old  miraculous  kindred,  alien  from  this  busy  new 
world  he  came  to,  about  the  boyish  driver  with  the 
fame  of  a  scholar,  in  his  grey  fleecy  cloak  and  hood 
of  soft  white  woollen  stuff,  as  he  drove  in  that  morning. 
Men  seemed  to  have  seen  a  star  flashing,  and  crowded 
round  to  examine  the  little  mountain-bred  beasts,  in 
loud,  friendly  intercourse  with  the  hero  of  the  hour  — 
even  those  usually  somewhat  unsympathetic  half-broth- 
ers now  full  of  enthusiasm  for  the  outcast  and  his  good 
fight  for  prosperity.  Instinctively  people  admired  his 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  183 

wonderful  placidity,  and  would  fain  have  shared  its 
secret,  as  it  were  the  carelessness  of  some  fair  flower 
upon  his  face.  A  victor  in  the  day's  race,  he  carried 
home  as  his  prize  a  glittering  new  harness  in  place  of 
the  very  old  one  he  had  come  with.  "  My  chariot  and 
horses  !  "  he  says  now,  with  his  single  touch  of  pride. 
Yet  at  home,  savouring  to  the  full  his  old  solitary 
happiness,  veiled  again  from  time  to  time  in  that 
ancient  life,  he  is  still  the  student,  still  ponders  the  old 
writings  which  tell  of  his  divine  patroness.  At  Athens 
strange  stories  are  told  in  turn  of  him,  his  nights  upon 
the  mountains,  his  dreamy  sin,  with  that  hypocritical 
virgin  goddess,  stories  which  set  the  jealous  suspicions 
of  Theseus  at  rest  once  more.  For  so  "  dream  "  not 
those  who  have  the  tangible,  appraiseable  world  in  view. 
Even  Queen  Phaedra  looks  with  pleasure,  as  he  comes, 
on  the  once  despised  illegitimate  creature,  at  home 
now  here  too,  singing  always  audaciously,  so  visibly 
happy,  occupied,  popular. 

Encompassed  by  the  luxuries  of  Athens,  far  from 
those  peaceful  mountain  places,  among  people  further 
still  in  spirit  from  their  peaceful  light  and  shade,  he 
did  not  forget  the  kindly  goddess,  still  sharing  with 
his  earthly  mother  the  prizes,  or  what  they  would  buy, 
for  the  adornment  of  their  spare  abode.  The  tombs 
of  the  fallen  Amazons,  the  spot  where  they  had 


184  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

breathed  their  last,  he  piously  visited,  informed  him- 
self of  every  circumstance  of  the  event  with  devout 
care,  and,  thinking  on  them  amid  the  dainties  of  the 
royal  table,  boldly  brought  them  too  their  share  of 
the  offerings  to  the  heroic  dead.  Aphrodite,  indeed  — 
Aphrodite,  of  whom  he  had  scarcely  so  much  as 
heard  — was  just  then  the  best-served  deity  in  Athens, 
with  all  its  new  wealth  of  colour  and  form,  its  gold 
and  ivory,  the  acting,  the  music,  the  fantastic  women, 
beneath  the  shadow  of  the  great  walls  still  rising 
steadily.  Hippolytus  would  have  no  part  in  her 
worship ;  instead  did  what  was  in  him  to  revive  the 
neglected  service  of  his  own  goddess,  stirring  an  old 
jealousy.  For  Aphrodite  too  had  looked  with  delight 
upon  the  youth,  already  the  centre  of  a  -hundred  less 
dangerous  human  rivalries  among  the  maidens  of 
Greece,  and  was  by  no  means  indifferent  to  his  indif- 
ference, his  instinctive  distaste ;  while  the  sterner, 
almost  forgotten  Artemis  found  once  more  her  great 
moon-shaped  cake,  set  about  with  starry  tapers,  at 
the  appointed  seasons. 

They  know  him  now  from  afar,  by  his  emphatic, 
shooting,  arrowy  movements ;  and  on  the  day  of  the 
great  chariot  races  "  he  goes  in  and  wins."  To  the 
surprise  of  all  he  compounded  his  handsome  prize  for 
the  old  wooden  image  taken  from  the  chapel  at  home, 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  185 

lurking  now  in  an  obscure  shrine  in  the  meanest  quar- 
ter of  the  town.  Sober  amid  the  noisy  feasting  which 
followed,  unashamed,  but  travelling  by  night  to  hide 
it  from  their  mockery,  warm  at  his  bosom,  he  reached 
the  passes  at  twilight,  and  through  the  deep  peace  of 
the  glens  bore  it  to  the  old  resting-place,  now  more 
worthy  than  ever  of  the  presence  of  its  mistress,  his 
mother  and  all  the  people  of  the  village  coming  forth 
to  salute  her,  all  doors  set  mystically  open,  as  she 
advances. 

Phaedra  too,  his  step-mother,  a  fiery  soul  with  wild, 
strange  blood  in  her  veins,  forgetting  her  fears  of  this 
illegitimate  rival  of  her  children,  seemed  now  to  have 
seen  him  for  the  first  time,  loved  at  last  the  very  touch 
of  his  fleecy  cloak,  and  would  fain  have  had  him  of 
her  own  religion.  As  though  the  once  neglected 
child  had  been  another,  she  tries  to  win  him  as  a 
stranger  in  his  manly  perfection,  growing  more  than 
an  affectionate  mother  to  her  husband's  son.  But 
why  thus  intimate  and  congenial,  she  asks,  always  in 
the  wrong  quarter?  Why  not  compass  two  ends  at 
once?  Why  so  squeamishly  neglect  the  powerful, 
any  power  at  all,  in  a  city  so  full  of  religion?  He 
might  find  the  image  of  her  sprightly  goddess  every- 
where, to  his  liking,  gold,  silver,  native  or  stranger, 
new  or  old,  graceful,  or  indeed,  if  he  preferred  it  so, 


186  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

in  iron  or  stone.  By  the  way,  she  explains  the  delights 
of  love,  of  marriage,  the  husband  once  out  of  the 
way ;  finds  in  him,  with  misgiving,  a  sort  of  forward- 
ness, as  she  thinks,  on  this  one  matter,  as  if  he  under- 
stood her  craft  and  despised  it.  He  met  her  questions 
in  truth  with  scarce  so  much  as  contempt,  with  laugh- 
ing counter-queries,  why  people  needed  wedding  at 
all?  They  might  have  found  the  children  in  the  tem- 
ples, or  bought  them,  as  you  could  buy  flowers  in 
Athens. 

Meantime  Phaedra's  young  children  draw  from  the 
seemingly  unconscious  finger  the  marriage-ring,  set  it 
spinning  on  the  floor  at  his  feet,  and  the  staid  youth 
places  it  for  a  moment  on  his  own  finger  for  safety. 
As  it  settles  there,  his  step-mother,  aware  all  the 
while,  suddenly  presses  his  hand  over  it.  He  found 
the  ring  there  that  night  as  he  lay;  left  his  bed  in 
the  darkness,  and  again,  for  safety,  put  it  on  the  finger 
of  the  image,  wedding  once  for  all  that  so  kindly  mys- 
tical mother.  And  still,  even  amid  his  earthly  mother's 
terrible  misgivings,  he  seems  to  foresee  a  charming 
career  marked  out  before  him  in  friendly  Athens,  to 
the  height  of  his  desire.  Grateful  that  he  is  here  at 
all,  sharing  at  last  so  freely  life's  banquet,  he  puts  him- 
self for  a  moment  in  his  old  place,  recalling  his  old 
enjoyment  of  the  pleasure  of  others ;  feels,  just  then, 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  187 

no  different.  Yet  never  had  life  seemed  so  sufficing 
as  at  this  moment  —  the  meat,  the  drink,  the  drives, 
the  popularity  as  he  comes  and  goes,  even  his  step- 
mother's false,  selfish,  ostentatious  gifts.  But  she,  too, 
begins  to  feel  something  of  the  jealousy  of  that  other 
divine,  would-be  mistress,  and  by  way  of  a  last  effort 
to  bring  him  to  a  better  mind  in  regard  to  them  both, 
conducts  him  (immeasurable  privilege  !)  to  her  own 
private  chapel. 

You  could  .hardly  tell  where  the  apartments  of  the 
adulteress  ended  and  that  of  the  divine  courtesan 
began.  Haunts  of  her  long,  indolent,  self-pleasing 
nights  and  days,  they  presented  everywhere  the  im- 
press of  Phasdra's  luxurious  humour.  A  peculiar  glow, 
such  as  he  had  never  before  seen,  like  heady  lamp- 
light, or  sunshine  to  some  sleeper  in  a  delirious  dream, 
hung  upon,  clung  to,  the  bold,  naked,  shameful  image- 
ries, as  his  step-mother  trimmed  the  lamps,  drew  forth 
her  sickly  perfumes,  clad  afresh  in  piquant  change  of 
raiment  the  almost  formless  goddess  crouching  there 
in  her  unclean  shrine  or  stye,  set  at  last  her  foolish 
wheel  in  motion  to  a  low  chant,  holding  him  by  the 
wrist,  keeping  close  all  the  while,  as  if  to  catch  some 
germ  of  consent  in  his  indifferent  words. 

And  little  by  little  he  perceives  that  all  this  is  for 
him — the  incense,  the  dizzy  wheel,  the  shreds  of  stuif 


188  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

cut  secretly  from  his  sleeve,  the  sweetened  cup  he 
drank  at  her  offer,  unavailingly ;  and  yes  !  his  own 
features  surely,  in  pallid  wax.  With  a  gasp  of  flighty 
laughter  she  ventures  to  point  the  thing  out  to  him, 
full  as  he  is  at  last  of  visible,  irrepressible  dislike.  Ah  ! 
it  was  that  very  reluctance  that  chiefly  stirred  her. 
Healthily  white  and  red,  he  had  a  marvellous  air  of 
discretion  about  him,  as  of  one  never  to  be  caught 
unaware,  as  if  he  never  could  be  anything  but  like 
water  from  the  rock,  or  the  wild  flowers  .of  the  morn- 
ing, or  the  beams  of  the  morning  star  turned  to  human 
flesh.  It  was  the  self-possession  of  this  happy  mind, 
the  purity  of  this  virgin  body,  she  would  fain  have  per- 
turbed, as  a  pledge  to  herself  of  her  own  gaudy  claim 
to  supremacy.  King  Theseus,  as  she  knew,  had  had 
at  least  two  earlier  loves ;  for  once  she  would  be  a  first 
love  ;  felt  at  moments  that  with  this  one  passion  once 
indulged,  it  might  be  happiness  thereafter  to  remain 
chaste  for  ever.  And  then,  by  accident,  yet  surely 
reading  indifference  in  his  manner  of  accepting  her 
gifts,  she  is  ready  again  for  contemptuous,  open  battle. 
Is  he  indeed  but  a  child  still,  this  nursling  of  the  for- 
bidding Amazon,  of  that  Amazonian  goddess  —  to  be 
a  child  always?  or  a  wily  priest  rather,  skilfully  cir- 
cumventing her  sorceries,  with  mystic  precautions  of 
his  own?  In  truth,  there  is  something  of  the  priestly 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  189 

character  in  this  impassible  discretion,  reminding  her 
of  his  alleged  intimacy  with  the  rival  goddess,  and 
redoubling  her  curiosity,  her  fondness.  Phsedra,  love- 
sick, feverish,  in  bodily  sickness  at  last,  raves  of  the 
cool  woods,  the  chase,  the  steeds  of  Hippolytus,  her 
thoughts  running  madly  on  what  she  fancies  to  be  his 
secret  business ;  with  a  storm  of  abject  tears,  foresee- 
ing in  one  moment  of  recoil  the  weary  tale  of  years  to 
come,  star-stricken  as  she  declares,  she  dared  at  last 
to  confess  her  longing  to  already  half-suspicious  attend- 
ants; and,  awake  one  morning  to  find  Hippolytus 
there  kindly  at  her  bidding,  drove  him  openly  forth 
in  a  tempest  of  insulting  speech.  There  was  a  mor- 
dent there,  like  the  menace  of  misfortune  to  come,  in 
which  the  injured  goddess  also  was  invited  to  concur. 
What  words  !  what  terrible  words  !  following,  clinging 
to  him,  like  acrid  fire  upon  his  bare  flesh,  as  he  hasted 
from  Phaedra's  house,  thrust  out  at  last,  his  vesture 
remaining  in  her  hands.  The  husband  returning  sud- 
denly, she  tells  him  a  false  story  of  violence  to  her 
bed,  and  is  believed. 

King  Theseus,  all  his  accumulated  store  of  suspi- 
cion and  dislike  turning  now  to  active  hatred,  flung 
away  readily  upon  him,  bewildered,  unheard,  one  of 
three  precious  curses  (some  mystery  of  wasting  sick- 
ness therein)  with  which  Poseidon  had  indulged  him. 


190  HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED 

It  seemed  sad  that  one  so  young  must  call  for  justice, 
precariously,  upon  the  gods,  the  dead,  the  very  walls  ! 
Admiring  youth  dared  hardly  bid  farewell  to  their  late 
comrade ;  are  generous,  at  most,  in  stolen,  sympa- 
thetic glances  towards  the  fallen  star.  At  home,  veiled 
once  again  in  that  ancient  twilight  world,  his  mother, 
fearing  solely  for  what  he  may  suffer  by  the  departure 
of  that  so  brief  prosperity,  enlarged  as  it  had  been, 
even  so,  by  his  grateful  taking  of  it,  is  reassured, 
delighted,  happy  once  more  at  the  visible  proof  of 
his  happiness,  his  invincible  happiness.  Duly  he 
returned  to  Athens,  early  astir,  for  the  last  time,  to 
restore  the  forfeited  gifts,  drove  back  his  gaily  painted 
chariot  to  leave  there  behind  him,  actually  enjoying 
the  drive,  going  home  on  foot  poorer  than  ever.  He 
takes  again  to  his  former  modes  of  life,  a  little  less  to 
the  horses,  a  little  more  to  the  old  studies,  the  strange, 
secret  history  of  his  favourite  goddess,  —  wronged 
surely  !  somehow,  she  too,  as  powerless  to  help  him ; 
till  he  lay  sick  at  last,  battling  one  morning,  unaware 
of  his  mother's  presence,  with  the  feverish  creations 
of  the  brain ;  the  giddy,  foolish  wheel,  the  foolish 
song,  of  Phaedra's  chapel,  spinning  there  with  his  heart 
bound  thereto.  "  The  curses  of  my  progenitors  are 
come  upon  me  !"  he  cries.  "And  yet,  why  so?  guilt- 
less as  I  am  of  evil."  His  wholesome  religion  seem- 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  191 

ing  to  turn  against  him  now,  the  trees,  the  streams, 
the  very  rocks,  swoon  into  living  creatures,  swarming 
around  the  goddess  who  has  lost  her  grave  quietness. 
He  finds  solicitation,  and  recoils,  in  the  wind,  in  the 
sounds  of  the  rain  ;  till  at  length  delirium  itself  finds 
a  note  of  returning  health.  The  feverish  wood-ways 
of  his  fancy  open  unexpectedly  upon  wide  currents 
of  air,  lulling  him  to  sleep ;  and  the  conflict  ending 
suddenly  altogether  at  its  sharpest,  he  lay  in  the  early 
light  motionless  among  the  pillows,  his  mother  stand- 
ing by,  as  she  thought,  to  see  him  die.  As  if  for  the 
last  time,  she  presses  on  him  the  things  he  had  liked 
best  in  that  eating  and  drinking  she  had  found  so 
beautiful.  The  eyes,  the  eyelids  are  big  with  sorrow ; 
and,  as  he  understands  again,  making  an  effort  for 
her  sake,  the  healthy  light  returns  into  his ;  a  hand 
seizes  hers  gratefully,  and  a  slow  convalescence  be- 
gins, the  happiest  period  in  the  wild  mother's  life. 
When  he  longed  for  flowers  for  the  goddess,  she  went 
a  toilsome  journey  to  seek  them,  growing  close,  after 
long  neglect,  wholesome  and  firm  on  their  tall  stalks. 
The  singing  she  had  longed  for  so  despairingly  hovers 
gaily  once  more  within  the  chapel  and  around  the 
house. 

At  the  crisis  of  that  strange  illness  she  had  sup- 
posed her  long  forebodings  about  to  be  realised   at 


192  HIPPOLYTUS   VEILED 

last ;  but  upon  his  recovery  feared  no  more,  assured 
herself  that  the  curses  of  the  father,  the  step-mother, 
the  concurrent  ill-will  of  that  angry  goddess,  have 
done  their  utmost;  he  will  outlive  her;  a  few  years 
hence  put  her  to  a  rest  surely  welcome.  Her  mis- 
givings, arising  always  out  of  the  actual  spectacle  of 
his  profound  happiness,  seemed  at  an  end  in  this 
meek  bliss,  the  more  as  she  observed  that  it  was 
a  shade  less  unconscious  than  of  old.  And  almost 
suddenly  he  found  the  strength,  the  heart,  in  him,  to 
try  his  fortune  again  with  the  old  chariot ;  and  those 
still  unsatisfied  curses,  in  truth,  going  on  either  side 
of  him  like  living  creatures  unseen,  legend  tells  briefly 
how,  a  competitor  for  pity  with  Adonis,  and  Icarus, 
and  Hyacinth,  and  other  doomed  creatures  of  imma- 
ture radiance  in  all  story  to  come,  he  set  forth  joyously 
for  the  chariot- races,  not  of  Athens,  but  of  Trcezen, 
her  rival.  Once  more  he  wins  the  prize ;  he  says 
good-bye  to  admiring  friends  anxious  to  entertain 
him,  and  by  night  starts  off  homewards,  as  of  old, 
like  a  child,  returning  quickly  through  the  solitude 
in  which  he  had  never  lacked  company,  and  was  now 
to  die.  Through  all  the  perils  of  darkness  he  had 
guided  the  chariot  safely  along  the  curved  shore ;  the 
dawn  was  come,  and  a  little  breeze  astir,  as  the  grey 
level  spaces  parted  delicately  into  white  and  blue, 


HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED  193 

when  in  a  moment  an  earthquake,  or  Poseidon  the 
earth-shaker  himself,  or  angry  Aphrodite  awake  from 
the  deep  betimes,  rent  the  tranquil  surface ;  a  great 
wave  leapt  suddenly  into  the  placid  distance  of  the 
Attic  shore,  and  was  surging  here  to  the  very  necks 
of  the  plunging  horses,  a  moment  since  enjoying  so 
pleasantly  with  him  the  caress  of  the  morning  air,  but 
now,  wholly  forgetful  of  their  old  affectionate  habit 
of  obedience,  dragging  their  leader  headlong  over  the 
rough  pavements.  Evening  and  the  dawn  might  seem 
to  have  met  on  that  hapless  day  through  which  they 
drew  him  home  entangled  in  the  trappings  of  the 
chariot  that  had  been  his  ruin,  till  he  lay  at  length, 
grey  and  haggard,  at  the  rest  he  had  longed  for  dimly 
amid  the  buffeting  of  those  murderous  stones,  his 
mother  watching  impassibly,  sunk  at  once  into  the 
condition  she  had  so  long  anticipated. 

Later  legend  breaks  a  supernatural  light  over  that 
great  desolation,  and  would  fain  relieve  the  reader 
by  introducing  the  kindly  Asclepius,  who  presently 
restores  the  youth  to  life,  not,  however,  in  the  old 
form  or  under  familiar  conditions.  To  her,  surely, 
counting  the  wounds,  the  disfigurements,  telling  over 
the  pains  which  had  shot  through  that  dear  head 
now  insensible  to  her  touch  among  the  pillows  under 


194  HIPPOLYTUS  VEILED 

the  harsh  broad  daylight,  that  would  have  been  no 
more  of  a  solace  than  if,  according  to  the  fancy  of 
Ovid,  he  flourished  still,  a  little  deity,  but  under  a  new 
name  and  veiled  now  in  old  age,  in  the  haunted  grove 
of  Aricia,  far  from  his  old  Attic  home,  in  a  land  which 
had  never  seen  him  as  he  was. 


THE    BEGINNINGS    OF   GREEK 
SCULPTURE 


I.  THE  HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART 

THE  extant  remains  of  Greek  sculpture,  though  but 
a  fragment  of  what  the  Greek  sculptors  produced,  are, 
both  in  number  and  in  excellence,  in  their  fitness, 
therefore,  to  represent  the  whole  of  which  they  were 
a  part,  quite  out  of  proportion  to  what  has  come 
down  to  us  of  Greek  painting,  and  all  those  minor 
crafts  which,  in  the  Greek  workshop,  as  at  all 
periods  when  the  arts  have  been  really  vigorous, 
were  closely  connected  with  the  highest  imaginative 
work.  Greek  painting  is  represented  to  us  only  by 
its  distant  reflexion  on  the  walls  of  the  buried 
houses  of  Pompeii,  and  the  designs  of  subordinate 
though  exquisite  craftsmen  on  the  vases.  Of  wrought 
metal,  partly  through  the  inherent  usefulness  of  its 
material,  tempting  ignorant  persons  into  whose  hands 
it  may  fall  to  re-fashion  it,  we  have  comparatively 
195 


196         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

little;  while,  in  consequence  of  the  perishableness 
of  their  material,  nothing  remains  of  the  curious 
wood-work,  the  carved  "ivory,  the  embroidery  and 
coloured  stuffs,  on  which  the  Greeks  set  much  store 
—  of  that  whole  system  of  refined  artisanship,  dif- 
fused, like  a  general  atmosphere  of  beauty  and  rich- 
ness, around  the  more  exalted  creations  of  Greek 
sculpture.  What  we  possess,  then,  of  that  highest 
Greek  sculpture  is  presented  to  us  in  a  sort  of  three- 
fold isolation;  isolation,  first  of  all,  from  the  con- 
comitant arts  —  the  frieze  of  the  Parthenon  without 
the  metal  bridles  on  the  horses,  for  which  the  holes 
in  the  marble  remain;  isolation,  secondly,  from  the 
architectural  group  of  which,  with  most  careful  esti- 
mate of  distance  and  point  of  observation,  that  frieze, 
for  instance,  was  designed  to  be  a  part;  isolation, 
thirdly,  from  the  clear  Greek  skies,  the  poetical 
Greek  life,  in  our  modern  galleries.  And  if  one 
here  or  there,  in  looking  at  these  things,  bethinks 
himself  of  the  required  substitution;  if  he  endeav- 
ours mentally  to  throw  them  back  into  that  proper 
atmosphere,  through  which  alone  they  can  exercise 
over  us  all  the  magic  by  which  they  charmed  their 
original  spectators,  the  effort  is  not  always  a  suc- 
cessful one,  within  the  grey  walls  of  the  Louvre  or 
the  British  Museum. 


THE  HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART  197 

And   the  circumstance   that   Greek   sculpture    is 
presented  to  us  in  such  falsifying  isolation  from  the 
work  of   the  weaver,  the   carpenter,  and   the   gold- 
smith, has  encouraged  a  manner  of  regarding  it  too 
little  sensuous.     Approaching  it  with  full  informa- 
tion concerning  what  may  be  called  the  inner  life  of 
the  Greeks,  their  modes  of  thought  and  sentiment 
amply  recorded  in  the  writings  of  the  Greek  poets 
and  philosophers,  but  with  no  lively  impressions  of 
that  mere  craftsman's  world  of  which  so  little  has 
remained,  students  of  antiquity  have  for  the  most 
part  interpreted  the  creations  of   Greek   sculpture, 
rather  as  elements  in  a  sequence  of  abstract  ideas, 
as  embodiments,  in  a  sort  of  petrified  language,  of 
pure   thoughts,  and   as   interesting   mainly  in  con- 
nexion  with   the   development   of    Greek   intellect, 
than  as  elements  of  a  sequence  in  the  material  order, 
as  results  of  a  designed  and  skilful  dealing  of  accom- 
plished fingers  with  precious  forms  of  matter  for  the 
delight  of  the  eyes.     Greek  sculpture  has  come  to  be 
regarded  as  the  product  of  a  peculiarly  limited  art, 
dealing  with  a  specially  abstracted  range  of  subjects; 
and  the  Greek  sculptor  as  a  workman  almost  exclu- 
sively intellectual,  having  only  a  sort  of  accidental 
connexion  with  the  material  in  which  his  thought 
was   expressed.     He  is  fancied   to  have  been   dis- 


198         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

dainful  of  such  matters  as  the  mere  tone,  the  fibre 
or  texture,  of  his  marble  or  cedar- wood,  of  that  just 
perceptible  yellowness,  for  instance,  in  the  ivory-like 
surface  of  the  Venus  of  Melos;  as  being  occupied 
only  with  forms  as  abstract  almost  as  the  conceptions 
of  philosophy,  and  translateable  it  might  be  supposed 
into  any  material  —  a  habit  of  regarding  him  still 
further  encouraged  by  the  modern  sculptor's  usage 
of  employing  merely  mechanical  labour  in  the  actual 
working  of  the  stone. 

The  works  of  the  highest  Greek  sculpture  are 
indeed  intellectualised,  if  we  may  say  so,  to  the 
utmost  degree ;  the  human  figures  which  they  present 
to  us  seem  actually  to  conceive  thoughts;  in  them, 
that  profoundly  reasonable  spirit  of  design  which  is 
traceable  in  Greek  art,  continuously  and  increasingly, 
upwards  from  its  simplest  products,  the  oil-vessel 
or  the  urn,  reaches  its  perfection.  Yet,  though  the 
most  abstract  and  intellectualised  of  sensuous  objects, 
they  are  still  sensuous  and  material,  addressing  them- 
selves, in  the  first  instance,  not  to  the  purely  reflec- 
tive faculty,  but  to  the  eye;  and  a  complete  criticism 
must  have  approached  them  from  both  sides  —  from 
the  side  of  the  intelligence  indeed,  towards  which 
they  rank  as  great  thoughts  come  down  into  the 
stone;  but  from  the  sensuous  side  also,  towards 


THE  HEROIC  AGE  OF   GREEK  ART          199 

which  they  rank  as  the  most  perfect  results  of  that 
pure  skill  of  hand,  of  which  the  Venus  of  Melos, 
we  may  say,  is  the  highest  example,  and  the  little 
polished  pitcher  or  lamp,  also  perfect  in  its  way, 
perhaps  the  lowest. 

To  pass  by  the  purely  visible  side  of  these  things, 
then,  is  not  only  to  miss  a  refining  pleasure,  but  to 
mistake  altogether  the  medium  in  which  the  most 
intellectual  of  the  creations  of  Greek  art,  the  ^Egi- 
netan  or  the  Elgin  marbles,  for  instance,  were  actually 
produced;  even  these  having,  in  their  origin,  de- 
pended for  much  of  their  charm  on  the  mere  mate- 
rial in  which  they  were  executed;  and  the  whole 
black  and  grey  world  of  extant  antique  sculpture 
needing  to  be  translated  back  into  ivory  and  gold, 
if  we  would  feel  the  excitement  which  the  Greek 
seems  to  have  felt  in  the  presence  of  these  objects. 
To  have  this  really  Greek  sense  of  Greek  sculpture, 
it  is  necessary  to  connect  it,  indeed,  with  the  inner 
life  of  the  Greek  world,  its  thought  and  sentiment, 
on  the  one  hand;  but  on  the  other  hand  to  connect 
it,  also,  with  the  minor  works  of  price,  intaglios, 
coins,  vases;  with  that  whole  system  of  material 
refinement  and  beauty  in  the  outer  Greek  life,  which 
these  minor  works  represent  to  us;  and  it  is  with 
these,  as  far  as  possible,  that  we  must  seek  to  relieve 


200         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

the  air  of  our  galleries  and  museums  of  their  too 
intellectual  greyness.  Greek  sculpture  could  not 
have  been  precisely  a  cold  thing;  and,  whatever  a 
colour-blind  school  may  say,  pure  thoughts  have 
their  coldness,  a  coldness  which  has  sometimes 
repelled  from  Greek  sculpture,  with  its  unsuspected 
fund  of  passion  and  energy  in  material  form,  those 
who  cared  much,  and  with  much  insight,  for  a 
similar  passion  and  energy  in  the  coloured  world  of 
Italian  painting. 

Theoretically,  then,  we  need  that  world  of  the 
minor  arts  as  a  complementary  background  for  the 
higher  and  more  austere  Greek  sculpture;  and,  as 
matter  of  fact,  it  is  just  with  such  a  world  —  with  a 
period  of  refined  and  exquisite  tectonics,  (as  the 
Greeks  called  all  crafts  strictly  subordinate  to  archi- 
tecture,) that  Greek  art  actually  begins,  in  what  is 
called  the  Heroic  Age,  that  earliest,  undefined  period 
of  Greek  civilisation,  the  beginning  of  which  cannot 
be  dated,  and  which  reaches  down  to  the  first 
Olympiad,  about  the  year  776  B.C.  Of  this  period 
we  possess,  indeed,  no  direct  history,  and  but  few 
actual  monuments,  great  or  small;  but  as  to  its 
whole  character  and  outward  local  colouring,  for  its 
art,  as  for  its  politics  and  religion,  Homer  may  be 
regarded  as  an  authority.  The  Iliad  and  the 


THE   HEROIC   AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          201 

Odyssey,  the  earliest  pictures  of  that  heroic  life, 
represent  it  as  already  delighting  itself  in  the 
application  of  precious  material  and  skilful  handi- 
work to  personal  and  domestic  adornment,  to  the 
refining  and  beautifying  of  the  entire  outward 
aspect  of  life;  above  all,  in  the  lavish  application 
of  very  graceful  metal-work  to  such  purposes.  And 
this  representation  is  borne  out  by  what  little  we 
possess  of  its  actual  remains,  and  by  all  we  can 
infer.  Mixed,  of  course,  with  mere  fable,  as  a 
description  of  the  heroic  age,  the  picture  which 
Homer  presents  to  us,  deprived  of  its  supernatural 
adjuncts,  becomes  continuously  more  and  more  realis- 
able as  the  actual  condition  of  early  art,  when  we 
emerge  gradually  into  historical  time,  and  find  our- 
selves at  last  among  dateable  works  and  real  schools 
or  masters. 

The  history  of  Greek  art,  then,  begins,  as  some 
have  fancied  general  history  to  begin,  in  a  golden 
age,  but  in  an  age,  so  to  speak,  of  real  gold,  the 
period  of  those  first  twisters  and  hammerers  of  the 
precious  metals  —  men  who  had  already  discovered 
the  flexibility  of  silver  and  the  ductility  of  gold,  the 
capacity  of  both  for  infinite  delicacy  of  handling, 
and  who  enjoyed,  with  complete  freshness,  a  sense 
of  beauty  and  fitness  in  their  work  —  a  period  of 


202         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

which  that  flower  of  gold  on  a  silver  stalk,  picked 
up  lately  in  one  of  the  graves  at  Mycenae,  or  the 
legendary  golden  honeycomb  of  Daedalus,  might 
serve  as  the  symbol.  The  heroic  age  of  Greek  art 
is  the  age  of  the  hero  as  smith. 

There  are  in  Homer  two  famous  descriptive 
passages  in  which  this  delight  in  curious  metal-work 
is  very  prominent;  the  description  in  the  Iliad  of 
the  shield  of  Achilles,1  and  the  description  of  the 
house  of  Alcinous  in  the  Odyssey.2  The  shield  of 
Achilles  is  part  of  the  suit  of  armour  which 
Hephaestus  makes  for  him  at  the  request  of  Thetis; 
and  it  is  wrought  of  variously  coloured  metals, 
woven  into  a  great  circular  composition  in  relief, 
representing  the  world  and  the  life  in  it.  The 
various  activities  of  man  are  recorded  in  this  descrip- 
tion in  a  series  of  idyllic  incidents  with  such  com- 
plete freshness,  liveliness,  and  variety,  that  the  reader 
from  time  to  time  may  well  forget  himself,  and  fancy 
he  is  reading  a  mere  description  of  the  incidents 
of  actual  life.  We  peep  into  a  little  Greek  town, 
and  see  in  dainty  miniature  the  bride  coming  from 
her  chamber  with  torch-bearers  and  dancers,  the 
people  gazing  from  their  doors,  a  quarrel  between 

l//.  xviii.  468-608.  2  Od.  vii.  37-132. 


THE   HEROIC   AGE  OF   GREEK   ART  203 

two  persons  in  the  market-place,  the  assembly  of  the 
elders  to  decide  upon  it.  In  another  quartering  is 
the  spectacle  of  a  city  besieged,  the  walls  defended 
by  the  old  men,  while  the  soldiers  have  stolen  out 
and  are  lying  in  ambush.  There  is  a  fight  on  the 
river-bank;  Ares  and  Athene,  conspicuous  in  gold, 
and  marked  as  divine  persons  by  a  scale  larger  than 
that  of  their  followers,  lead  the  host.  The  strange, 
mythical  images  of  Ker,  Eris,  and  Kudoimos  mingle 
in  the  crowd.  A  third  space  upon  the  shield  depicts 
the  incidents  of  peaceful  labour  —  the  ploughshare 
passing  through  the  field,  of  enamelled  black  metal 
behind  it,  and  golden  before;  the  cup  of  mead  held 
out  to  the  ploughman  when  he  reaches  the  end  of 
the  furrow;  the  reapers  with  their  sheaves;  the  king 
standing  in  silent  pleasure  among  them,  intent  upon 
his  staff.  There  are  the  labourers  in  the  vineyard 
in  minutest  detail;  stakes  of  silver  on  which  the 
vines  hang;  the  dark  trench  about  it,  and  one  path- 
way through  the  midst;,  the  whole  complete  and 
distinct,  in  variously  coloured  metal.  All  things 
and  living  creatures  are  in  their  places  —  the  cattle 
coming  to  water  to  the  sound  of  the  herdsman's 
pipe,  various  music,  the  rushes  by  the  water-side, 
a  lion-hunt  with  dogs,  the  pastures  among  the  hills, 
a  dance,  the  fair  dresses  of  the  male  and  female 


204          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

dancers,  the  former  adorned  with  swords,  the  latter 
with  crowns.  It  is  an  image  of  ancient  life,  its 
pleasure  and  business.  For  the  centre,  as  in  some 
quaint  chart  of  the  heavens,  are  the  earth  and  the 
sun,  the  moon  and  constellations;  and  to  close  in 
all,  right  round,  like  a  frame  to  the  picture,  the 
great  river  Oceanus,  forming  the  rim  of  the  shield, 
in  some  metal  of  dark  blue. 

Still  more  fascinating,  perhaps,  because  more  com- 
pletely realisable  by  the  fancy  as  an  actual  thing  — 
realisable  as  a  delightful  place  to  pass  time  in  —  is 
the  description  of  the  palace  of  Alcinous  in  the 
little  island  town  of  the  Phasacians,  to  which  we  are 
introduced  in  all  the  liveliness  and  sparkle  of  the 
morning,  as  real  as  something  seen  last  summer  on 
the  sea-coast;  although,  appropriately,  Ulysses  meets 
a  goddess,  like  a  young  girl  carrying  a  pitcher,  on 
his  way  up  from  the  sea.  Below  the  steep  walls 
of  the  town,  two  projecting  jetties  allow  a  narrow 
passage  into  a  haven  of  stone  for  the  ships,  into 
which  the  passer-by  may  look  down,  as  they  lie 
moored  below  the  roadway.  In  the  midst  is  the 
king's  house,  all  glittering,  again,  with  curiously 
wrought  metal;  its  brightness  is  "as  the  brightness 
of  the  sun  or  of  the  moon."  The  heart  of  Ulysses 
beats  quickly  when  he  sees  it  standing  amid  planta- 


THE   HEROIC   AGE   OF   GREEK  ART          205 

tions  ingeniously  watered,  its  floor  and  walls  of 
brass  throughout,  with  continuous  cornice  of  dark 
iron;  the  doors  are  of  gold,  the  door-posts  and 
lintels  of  silver,  the  handles,  again,  of  gold  — 

"The  walls  were  massy  brass;   the  cornice  high 
Blue  metals  crowned  in  colours  of  the  sky; 
Rich  plates  of  gold  the  folding-doors  incase; 
The  pillars  silver  on  a  brazen  base; 
Silver  the  lintels  deep-projecting  o'er; 
And  gold  the  ringlets  that  command  the  door." 

Dogs  of  the  same  precious  metals  keep  watch  on 
either  side,  like  the  lions  over  the  old  gateway  of 
Mycenae,  or  the  gigantic,  human-headed  bulls  at  the 
entrance  of  an  Assyrian  palace.  Within  doors  the 
burning  lights  at  supper-time  are  supported  in 
the  hands  of  golden  images  of  boys,  while  the  guests 
recline  on  a  couch  running  all  along  the  wall, 
covered  with  peculiarly  sumptuous  women's  work. 
From  these  two  glittering  descriptions  manifestly 
something  must  be  deducted;  we  are  in  wonder- 
land, and  among  supernatural  or  magical  conditions. 
But  the  forging  of  the  shield  and  the  wonderful 
house  of  Alcinous  are  no  merely  incongruous  episodes 
in  Homer,  but  the  consummation  of  what  is  always 
characteristic  of  him,  a  constant  preoccupation, 
namely,  with  every  form  of  lovely  craftsmanship, 


206          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

resting  on  all  things,  as  he  says,  like  the  shining  of 
the  sun.  We  seem  to  pass,  in  reading  him,  through 
the  treasures  of  some  royal  collection;  in  him  the 
presentation  of  almost  every  aspect  of  life  is  beau- 
tified by  the  work  of  cunning  hands.  The  thrones, 
coffers,  couches  of  curious  carpentry,  are  studded 
with  bossy  ornaments  of  precious  metal  effectively 
disposed,  or  inlaid  with  stained  ivory,  or  blue  cyanus, 
or  amber,  or  pale  amber-like  gold;  the  surfaces  of 
the  stone  conduits,  the  sea-walls,  the  public  washing- 
troughs,  the  ramparts  on  which  the  weary  soldiers 
rest  themselves  when  returned  to  Troy,  are  fair  and 
smooth;  all  the  fine  qualities,  in  colour  and  texture, 
of  woven  stuff  are  carefully  noted  —  the  fineness, 
closeness,  softness,  pliancy,  gloss,  the  whiteness  or 
nectar-like  tints  in  which  the  weaver  delights  to 
work;  to  weave  the  sea-purple  threads  is  the  appro- 
priate function  of  queens  and  noble  women.  All 
the  Homeric  shields  are  more  or  less  ornamented 
with  variously  coloured  metal,  terrible  sometimes, 
like  Leonardo's,  with  some  monster  or  grotesque. 
The  numerous  sorts  of  cups  are  bossed  with  golden 
studs,  or  have  handles  wrought  with  figures,  of  doves, 
for  instance.  The  great  brazen  cauldrons  bear  an 
epithet  which  means  flowery.  The  trappings  of  the 
horses,  the  various  parts  of  the  chariots,  are  formed 


THE   HEROIC  AGE   OF   GREEK  ART  207 

of  various  metals.     The  women's  ornaments  and  the 
instruments  of  their  toilet  are  described  — 


ir6piras  re  yvaiAirrds  ffi  £\IKCIS,  icd\VKds  re  ical 

—  the  golden  vials  for  unguents.  Use  and  beauty 
are  still  undivided;  all  that  men's  hands  are  set  to 
make  has  still  a  fascination  alike  for  workmen  and 
spectators.  For  such  dainty  splendour  Troy,  indeed, 
is  especially  conspicuous.  But  then  Homer's  Trojans 
are  essentially  Greeks  —  Greeks  of  Asia;  and  Troy, 
though  more  advanced  in  all  elements  of  civilisation, 
is  no  real  contrast  to  the  western  shore  of  the 
^Egean.  It  is  no  barbaric  world  that  we  see,  but 
the  sort  of  world,  we  may  think,  that  would  have 
charmed  alsp  our  comparatively  jaded  sensibilities, 
with  just  that  quaint  simplicity  which  we  too  enjoy 
in  its  productions;  above  all,  in  its  wrought  metal, 
which  loses  perhaps  more  than  any  other  sort  of  work 
by  becoming  mechanical.  The  metal-work  which 
Homer  describes  in  such  variety*  is  all  hammer-work, 
all  the  joinings  being  effected  by  pins  or  riveting. 
That  is  just  the  sort  of  metal-  work  which,  in  a  certain 
naivete  and  vigour,  is  still  of  all  work  the  most  ex- 
pressive of  actual  contact  with  dexterous  fingers;  one 
seems  to  trace  in  it,  on  every  particle  of  the  partially 
resisting  material,  the  touch  and  play  of  the  shaping 


208          BEGINNINGS   OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

instruments,  in  highly  trained  hands,  under  the  guid- 
ance of  exquisitely  disciplined  senses  —  that  cachet, 
or  seal  of  nearness  to  the  workman's  hand,  which  is 
the  special  charm  of  all  good  metal-work,  of  early 
metal-work  in  particular. 

Such  descriptions,  however,  it  may  be  said,  are 
mere  poetical  ornament,  of  no  value  in  helping  us 
to  define  the  character  of  an  age.  But  what  is 
peculiar  in  these  Homeric  descriptions,  what  dis- 
tinguishes them .  from  others  at  first  sight  similar, 
is  a  sort  of  internal  evidence  they  present  of  a  certain 
degree  of  reality,  signs  in  them  of  an  imagination 
stirred  by  surprise  at  the  spectacle  of  real  works 
of  art.  Such  minute,  delighted,  loving  description 
of  details  of  ornament,  such  following  out  of  the 
ways  in  which  brass,  gold,  silver,  or  paler  gold, 
go  into  the  chariots  and  armour  and  women's  dress, 
or  cling  to  the  walls  —  the  enthusiasm  of  the  manner 
—  is  the  warrant  of  a  certain  amount  of  truth  in  all 
that.  The  .Greek  poet  describes  these  things  with 
the  same  vividness  and  freshness,  the  same  kind  of 
fondness,  with  which  other  poets  speak  of  flowers; 
speaking  of  them  poetically,  indeed,  but  with  that 
higher  sort  of  poetry  which  seems  full  of  the  lively 
impression  of  delightful  things  recently  seen.  Genu- 
ine poetry,  it  is  true,  is  always  naturally  sympathetic 


THE  HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          209 

with  all  beautiful  sensible  things  and  qualities.  But 
with  how  many  poets  would  not  this  constant  intru- 
sion of  material  ornament  have  produced  a  tawdry 
effect!  The  metal  would  all  be  tarnished  and  the 
edges  blurred.  And  this  is  because  it  is  not  always 
that  the  products  of  even  exquisite  tectonics  can  ex- 
cite or  refine  the  aesthetic  sense.  Now  it  is  proba- 
ble that  the  objects  of  oriental  art,  the  imitations  of 
it  at  home,  in  which  for  Homer  this  actual  world  of 
art  must  have  consisted,  reached  him  in  a  quantity, 
and  with  a  novelty,  just  sufficient  to  warm  and  stim- 
ulate without  surfeiting  the  imagination;  it  is  an 
exotic  thing  of  which  he  sees  just  enough  and  not  too 
much.  The  shield  of  Achilles,  the  house  of  Alcinous, 
are  like  dreams  indeed,  but  this  sort  of  dreaming 
winds  continuously  through  the  entire  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  —  a  child's  dream  after  a  day  of  real,  fresh 
impressions  from  things  themselves,  in  which  all 
those  floating  impressions  re-set  themselves.  He  is 
as  pleased  in  touching  and  looking  at  those  objects 
as  his  own  heroes;  their  gleaming  aspect  brightens 
all  he  says,  and  has  taken  hold,  one  might  think,  of 
his  language,  his  very  vocabulary  becoming  chrys- 
elephantine. Homer's  artistic  descriptions,  though 
enlarged  by  fancy,  are  not  wholly  imaginary,  and  the 
extant  remains  of  monuments  of  the  earliest  histori- 


210          BEGINNINGS   OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

cal  age  are  like  lingering  relics  of  that  dream  in  a 
tamer  but  real  world. 

The  art  of  the  heroic  age,  then,  as  represented  in 
Homer,  connects  itself,  on  the  one  side,  with  those 
fabulous  jewels  so  prominent  in  mythological  story, 
and  entwined  sometimes  so  oddly  in  its  representa- 
tion of  human  fortunes  —  the  necklace  of  Eriphyle, 
the  necklace  of  Helen,  which  Menelaus,  it  was  said, 
offered  at  Delphi  to  Athene  Pronoea  on  the  eve  of 
his  expedition  against  Troy  —  mythical  objects, 
indeed,  but  which  yet  bear  witness  even  thus  early 
to  the  aesthetic  susceptibility  of  the  Greek  temper. 
But,  on  the  other  hand,  the  art  of  the  heroic  age 
connects  itself  also' with  the  actual  early  beginnings 
of  artistic  production.  There  are  touches  of  reality, 
for  instance,  in  Homer's  incidental  notices  of  its 
instruments  and  processes;  especially  as  regards  the 
working  of  metal.  He  goes  already  to  the  potter's 
wheel  for  familiar,  life-like  illustration.  In  describ- 
ing artistic  wood-work  he  distinguishes  various  stages 
of  work;  we  see  clearly  the  instruments  for  turning 
and  boring,  such  as  the  old-fashioned  drill-borer, 
whirled  round  with  a  string;  he  mentions  the  names 
of  two  artists,  the  one  of  an  actual  workman,  the 
other  of  a  craft  turned  into  a  proper  name  —  stray 
relics,  accidentally  reserved,  of  a  world,  as  we  may 


THE   HEROIC  AGE  OF   GREEK   ART          211 

believe,  of  such  wide  and  varied  activity.  The  forge 
of  Hephaestus  is  a  true  forge ;  the  magic  tripods  on 
which  he  is  at  work  are  really  put  together  by  con- 
ceivable processes,  known  in  early  times.  Composi- 
tions in  relief  similar  to  those  which  he  describes 
were  actually  made  out  of  thin  metal  plates  cut  into 
a  convenient  shape,  and  then  beaten  into  the  designed 
form  by  the  hammer  over  a  wooden  model.  These 
reliefs  were  then  fastened  to  a  differently  coloured 
metal  background  or  base,  with  nails  or  rivets,  for 
there  is  no  soldering  of  metals  as  yet.  To  this  pro- 
cess the  ancients  gave  the  name  of  empcestik,  such 
embossing  being  still,  in  our  own  time,  a  beautiful 
form  of  metal-work. 

Even  in  the  marvellous  shield  there  are  other  and 
indirect  notes  of  reality.  In  speaking  of  the  shield 
of  Achilles,  I  departed  intentionally  from  the  order 
in  which  the  subjects  of  the  relief  are  actually  intro- 
duced in  the  Iliad,  because,  just  then,  I  wished  the 
reader  to  receive  the  full  effect  of  the  variety  and 
elaborateness  of  the  composition,  as  a  representation 
or  picture  of  the  whole  of  ancient  life  embraced 
within  the  circumference  of  a  shield.  But  in  the 
order  in  which  Homer  actually  describes  those  epi- 
sodes he  is  following  the  method  of  a  very  practicable 
form  of  composition,  and  is  throughout  much  closer 


212         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

than  we  might  at  first  sight  suppose  to  the  ancient 
armourer's  proceedings.  The  shield  is  formed  of 
five  superimposed  plates  of  different  metals,  each 
plate  of  smaller  diameter  than  the  one  immediately 
below  it,  their  flat  margins  showing  thus  as  four  con- 
centric stripes  or  rings  of  metal,  around  a  sort  of  boss 
in  the  centre,  five  metals  thick,  and  the  outermost 
circle  or  ring  being  the  thinnest.  To  this  arrange- 
ment the  order  of  Homer's  description  corresponds. 
The  earth  and  the  heavenly  bodies  are  upon  this  boss 
in  the  centre,  like  a  little  distant  heaven  hung  above 
the  broad  world,  and  from  this  Homer  works  out, 
round  and  round,  to  the  river  Oceanus,  which  forms 
the  border  of  the  whole;  the  subjects  answering  to, 
or  supporting  each  other,  in  a,  sort  of  heraldic  order  — 
the  city  at  peace  set  over  against  the  city  besieged 

—  spring,  summer,  and  autumn  balancing  each  other 

—  quite   congruously   with   a   certain   heraldic  turn 
common   in   contemporary  Assyrian   art,  which  de- 
lights in  this  sort  of  conventional  spacing  out  of  its 
various   subjects,  and    especially   with   some   extant 
metal  chargers  of   Assyrian  work,  which,  like  some 
of  the  earliest  Greek  vases  with  their  painted  plants 
and   flowers    conventionally   arranged,    illustrate    in 
their  humble  measure  such  heraldic  grouping. 

The  description  of  the  shield  of  Hercules,  attrib- 


THE   HEROIC   AGE  OF  GREEK   ART  213 

uted  to  Hesiod,  is  probably  an  imitation  of  Homer, 
and,  notwithstanding  some  fine  mythological  imper- 
sonations which  it  contains,  an  imitation  less  admi- 
rable than  the  original.  Of  painting  there  are  in 
Homer  no  certain  indications,  and  it  is  consistent 
with  the  later  date  of  the  imitator  that  we  may  per- 
haps discern  in  his  composition  a  sign  that  what  he 
had  actually  seen  was  a  painted  shield,  in  the  pre- 
dominance in  it,  as  compared  with  the  Homeric 
description,  of  effects  of  colour  over  effects  of  form; 
Homer  delighting  in  ingenious  devices  for  fastening 
the  metal,  and  the  supposed  Hesiod  rather  in  what 
seem  like  triumphs  of  heraldic  colouring;  though  the 
latter  also  delights  in  effects  of  mingled  metals,  of 
mingled  gold  and  silver  especially  —  silver  figures 
with  dresses  of  gold,  silver  centaurs  with  pine-trees . 
of  gold  for  staves  in  their  hands.  Still,  like  the 
shield  of  Achilles,  this  too  we  mus-t  conceive  as 
formed  of  concentric  plates  of  metal ;  and  here  again 
the  spacing  is  still  more  elaborately  carried  out,  nar- 
rower intermediate  rings  being  apparently  introduced 
between  the  broader  ones,  with  figures  in  rapid,  hori- 
zontal, unbroken  motion,  carrying  the  eye  right  round 
the  shield,  in  contrast  with  the  repose  of  the  down- 
ward or  inward  movement  of  the  subjects  which 
divide  the  larger  spaces;  here  too  with  certain  analo- 


214         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

gies  in  the  rows  of  animals  to  the  designs  on  the 
earliest  vases. 

In  Hesiod  then,  as  in  Homer,  there  are  undesigned 
notes  of  correspondence  between  the  partly  mythical 
ornaments  imaginatively  enlarged  of  the  heroic  age, 
and  a  world  of  actual  handicrafts.  In  the  shield  of 
Hercules  another  marvellous  detail  is  added  in  the 
image  of  Perseus,  very  daintily  described  as  hovering 
in  some  wonderful  way,  as  if  really  borne  up  by 
wings,  above  the  surface.  And  that  curious,  haunt- 
ing sense  of  magic  in  art,  which  comes  out  over  and 
over  again  in  Homer  —  in  the  golden  maids,  for  in- 
stance, who  assist  Hephaestus  in  his  work,  and  simi- 
lar details  which  seem  at  first  sight  to  destroy  the 
credibility  of  the  whole  picture,  and  make  of  it  a 
mere  wonder-land  —  is  itself  also,  rightly  understood, 
a  testimony  to  a  real  excellence  in  the  art  of  Homer's 
time.  It  is  sometimes  said  that  works  of  art  held  to 
be  miraculous  are  always  of  an  inferior  kind;  but  at 
least  it  was  not  among  those  who  thought  them  infe- 
rior that  the  belief  in  their  miraculous  power  began. 
If  the  golden  images  move  like  living  creatures,  and 
the  armour  of  Achilles,  so  wonderfully  made,  lifts 
him  like  wings,  this  again  is  because  the  imagination 
of  Homer  is  really  under  the  stimulus  of  delightful 
artistic  objects  actually  seen.  Only  those  to  whom 


THE   HEROIC   AGE  OF  GREEK   ART  215 

such  artistic  objects  manifest  themselves  through  real 
and  powerful  impressions  of  their  wonderful  qualities, 
can  invest  them  with  properties  magical  or  miracu- 
lous. 

I  said  that  the  inherent  usefulness  of  the  material 
of  metal-work  makes  the  destruction  of  its  acquired 
form  almost  certain,  if  it  comes  into  the  possession 
of  people  either  barbarous  or  careless  of  the  work  of 
a  past  time.  Greek  art  is  for  us,  in  all  its  stages,  a 
fragment  only;  in  each  of  them  it  is  necessary,  in  a 
somewhat  visionary  manner,  to  fill  up  empty  spaces, 
and  more  or  less  make  substitution;  and  of  the  finer 
work  of  the  heroic  age,  thus  dimly  discerned  as  an 
actual  thing,  we  had  at  least  till  recently  almost  noth- 
ing. Two  plates  of  bronze,  a  few  rusty  nails,  and 
certain  rows  of  holes  in  the  inner  surface  of  the  walls 
of  the  "  treasury  "  of  Mycenae,  were  the  sole  repre- 
sentatives of  that  favourite  device  of  primitive  Greek 
art,  the  lining  of  stone  walls  with  burnished  metal, 
of  which  the  house  of  Alcinous  in  the  Odyssey  is  the 
ideal  picture,  and  the  temple  of  Pallas  of  the  Brazen 
House  at  Sparta,  adorned  in  the  interior  with  a  coat- 
ing of  reliefs  in  metal,  a  later,  historical  example. 
Of  the  heroic  or  so-called  Cyclopean  architecture, 
that  "treasury,"  a  building  so  imposing  that  Pausa- 
nias  thought  it  worthy  to  rank  with  the  Pyramids, 


216         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

is  a  sufficient  illustration.  Treasury,  or  tomb,  or 
both,  (the  selfish  dead,  perhaps,  being  supposed  still 
to  find  enjoyment  in  the  costly  armour,  goblets,  and 
mirrors  laid  up  there,)  this  dome-shaped  building, 
formed  of  concentric  rings  of  stones  gradually  dimin- 
ishing to  a  coping-stone  at  the  top,  may  stand  as  the 
representative  of  some  similar  buildings  in  other 
parts  of  Greece,  and  of  many  others  in  a  similar  kind 
of  architecture  elsewhere,  constructed  of  large  many- 
sided  blocks  of  stone,  fitted  carefully  together  with- 
out the  aid  of  cement,  and  remaining  in  their  places 
by  reciprocal  resistance.  Characteristic  of  it  is  the 
general  tendency  to  use  vast  blocks  of  stone  for  the 
jambs  and  lintels  of  doors,  for  instance,  and  in  the 
construction  of  gable-shaped  passages;  two  rows  of 
such  stones  being  made  to  rest  against  each  other  at 
an  acute  angle,  within  the  thickness  of  the  walls. 

So  vast  and  rude,  fretted  by  the  action  of  nearly 
three  thousand  years,  the  fragments  of  this  architect- 
ure may  often  seem,  at  first  sight,  like  works  of 
nature.  At  Argos,  Tiryns,  Mycenae,  the  skeleton  of 
the  old  architecture  is  more  complete.  At  Mycenae 
the  gateway  of  the  acropolis  is  still  standing  with  its 
two  well-known  sculptured  lions  —  immemorial  and 
almost  unique  monument  of  primitive  Greek  sculpt- 
ure—  supporting,  herald-wise,  a  symbolical  pillar  on 


THE  HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          217 

the  vast,  triangular,  pedimental  stone  above.  The 
heads  are  gone,  having  been  fashioned  possibly  in 
metal  by  workmen  from  the  East.  On  what  may  be 
called  the  facade,  remains  are  still  discernible  of 
inlaid  work  in  coloured  stone,  and  within  the  gate- 
way, on  the  smooth  slabs  of  the  pavement,  the  wheel- 
ruts  are  still  visible.  Connect  them  with  those  metal 
war-chariots  in  Homer,  and  you  may  see  in  fancy 
the  whole  grandiose  character  of  the  place,  as  it  may 
really  have  been.  Shut  within  the  narrow  enclosure 
of  these  shadowy  citadels  were  the  palaces  of  the 
kings,  with  all  that  intimacy  which  we  may  some- 
times suppose  to  have  been  alien  from  the  open-air 
Greek  life,  admitting,  doubtless,  below  the  cover  of 
their  rough  walls,  many  of  those  refinements  of 
princely  life  which  the  middle  age  found  possible 
in  such  places,  and  of  which  the  impression  is  so 
fascinating  in  Homer's  description,  for  instance,  of 
the  house  of  Ulysses,  or  of  Menelaus  at  Sparta. 
Rough  and  frowning  without,  these  old  chdteaux  of 
the  Argive  kings  were  delicate  within  with  a  decora- 
tion almost  as  dainty  and  fine  as  the  network  of  weed 
and  flower  that  now  covers  their  ruins,  and  of  the 
delicacy  of  which,  as  I  said,  that  golden  flower  on 
its  silver  stalk,  or  the  golden  honeycomb  of  Daedalus, 
might  be  taken  as  representative.  In  these  metal- 


218         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

like  structures  of  self-supporting  polygons,  locked  so 
firmly  and  impenetrably  together,  with  the  whole 
mystery  of  the  reasonableness  of  the  arch  implicitly 
within  them,  there  is  evidence  of  a  complete  artistic 
command  over  weight  in  stone,  'and  an  understanding 
of  the  "law  of  weight."  But  over  weight  only;  the 
ornament  still  seems  to  be  not  strictly  architectural, 
but,  according  to  the  notices  of  Homer,  tectonic, 
borrowed  from  the  sister  arts,  above  all  from  the  art 
of  the  metal-workers,  to  whom  those  spaces  of  the 
building  are  left  which  a  later  age  fills  with  painting, 
or  relief  in  stone.  The  skill  of  the  Asiatic  comes 
to  adorn  this  rough  native  building;  and  it  is  a  late, 
elaborate,  somewhat  voluptuous  skill,  we  may  under- 
stand, illustrated  by  the  luxury  of  that  Asiatic  cham- 
ber of  Paris,  less  like  that  of  a  warrior  than  of  one 
going  to  the  dance.  Coupled  with  the  vastness  of 
the  architectural  works  which  actually  remain,  such 
descriptions  as  that  in  Homer  of  the  chamber  of 
Paris  and  the  house  of  Alcinous  furnish  forth  a  pict- 
ure of  that  early  period  —  the  tyrants'  age,  the  age 
of  the  acropoleis,  the  period  of  great  dynasties  with 
claims  to  "divine  right,"  and  in  many  instances  at 
least  with  all  the  culture  of  their  time.  The  vast 
buildings  make  us  sigh  at  the  thought  of  wasted 
human  labour,  though  there  is  a  public  usefulness 


THE   HEROIC  AGE   OF   GREEK  ART  219 

too  in  some  of  these  designs,  such  as  the  draining  of 
the  Copaic  lake,  to  which  the  backs  of  the  people  are 
bent  whether  they  will  or  not.  For  the  princes  there 
is  much  of  that  selfish  personal  luxury  which  is  a  con- 
stant trait  of  feudalism  in  all  ages.  For  the  people, 
scattered  over  the  country,  at  their  agricultural  labour, 
or  gathered  in  small  hamlets,  there  is  some  enjoy- 
ment, perhaps,  of  the  aspect  of  that  splendour,  of 
the  bright  warriors  on  the  heights  —  a  certain  share 
of  the  nobler  pride  of  the  tyrants  themselves  in  those 
tombs  and  dwellings.  Some  surmise,  also,  there 
seems  to  have  been,  of  the  "curse"  of  gold,  with  a 
dim,  lurking  suspicion  of  curious  facilities  for  cruelty 
in  the  command  over  those  skilful  artificers  in  metal 

—  some  ingenious  rack  or  bull  "to  pinch  and  peel  " 

—  the   tradition   of   which,  not  unlike   the  modern 
Jacques  Bonhomme's  shudder  at  the  old  ruined  French 
donjon   or   bastille,  haunts,  generations   afterwards, 
the  ruins  of  those  "labyrinths"  of  stone,  where  the 
old  tyrants  had  their  pleasures.     For  it  is  a  mistake 
to  suppose  that  that  wistful  sense  of  eeriness  in  ruined 
buildings,  to  which  most  of  us  are  susceptible,  is  an 
exclusively  modern   feeling.     The  name   Cyclopean, 
attached  to  those  desolate  remains  of  buildings  which 
were   older   than   Greek   history  itself,  attests   their 
romantic  influence  over  the  fancy  of  the  people  who 


220 


thus  attributed  them  to  a  superhuman  strength  and 
skill.  And  the  Cyclopes,  like  all  the  early  mythical 
names  of  artists,  have  this  note  of  reality,  that  they 
are  names  not  of  individuals  but  of  classes,  the 
guilds  or  companies  of  workmen  in  which  a  certain 
craft  was  imparted  and  transmitted.  The  Dactyli, 
the  Fingers,  are  the  first  workers  in  iron;  the  savage 
Chalybes  in  Scythia  the  first  smelters;  actual  names 
are  given  to  the  old,  fabled  Telchines  —  Chalkon, 
Argyron,  Chryson  —  workers  in  brass,  silver,  and 
gold,  respectively.  The  tradition  of  their  activity 
haunts  the  several  regions  where  those  metals  were 
found.  They  make  the  trident  of  Poseidon;  but 
then  Poseidon's  trident  is  a  real  fisherman's  instru- 
ment, the  tunny-fork.  They  are  credited,  notwith- 
standing, with  an  evil  sorcery,  unfriendly  to  men,  as 
poor  humanity  remembered  the  makers  of  chains, 
locks,  Procrustean  beds;  and,  as  becomes  this  dark, 
recondite  mine  and  metal  work,  the  traditions  about 
them  are  gloomy  and  grotesque,  confusing  mortal 
workmen  with  demon  guilds. 

To  this  view  of  the  heroic  age  of  Greek  art  as 
being,  so  to  speak,  an  age  of  real  gold,  an  age  de- 
lighting itself  in  precious  material  and  exquisite 
handiwork  in  all  tectonic  crafts,  the  recent  extraordi- 
nary discoveries  at  Troy  and  Mycenae  are,  on  any 


THE    HEROIC   AGE   OF   GREEK   ART          221 

plausible  theory  of  their  date  and  origin,  a  witness. 
The  aesthetic  critic  needs  always  to  be  on  his  guard 
against  the  confusion  of  mere  curiosity  or  antiquity 
with  beauty  in  art.  Among  the  objects  discovered 
at  Troy  —  mere  curiosities,  some  of  them,  however 
interesting  and  instructive  —  the  so-called  royal  cup 
of  Priam,  in  solid  gold,  two-handled  and  double- 
lipped,  (the  smaller  lip  designed  for  the  host  and  his 
libation,  the  larger  for  the  guest,)  has,  in  the  very 
simplicity  of  its  design,  the  grace  of  the  economy 
with  which  it  exactly  fulfils  its  purpose,  a  positive 
beauty,  an  absolute  value  for  the  aesthetic  sense, 
while  strange  and  new  enough,  if  it  really  settles  at 
last  a  much-debated  expression  of  Homer;  while  the 
"diadem,"  with  its  twisted  chains  and  flowers  of  pale 
gold,  shows  that  those  profuse  golden  fringes,  waving 
so  comely  as  he  moved,  which  Hephaestus  wrought 
for  the  helmet  of  Achilles,  were  really  within  the 
compass  of  early  Greek  art. 

And  the  story  of  the  excavations  at  Mycenae  reads 
more  like  some  well-devised  chapter  of  fiction  than 
a  record  of  sober  facts.  Here,  those  sanguine,  half- 
childish  dreams  of  buried  treasure  discovered  in 
dead  men's  graves,  which  seem  to  have  a  charm  for 
every  one,  are  more  than  fulfilled  in  the  spectacle  of 
those  antique  kings,  lying  in  the  splendour  of  their 


222         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

crowns  and  breast-plates  of  embossed  plate  of  gold; 
their  swords,  studded  with  golden  imagery,  at  their 
sides,  as  in  some  feudal  monument;  their  very  faces 
covered  up  most  strangely  in  golden  masks.  The 
very  floor  of  one  tomb,  we  read,  was  thick  with 
gold-dust  —  the  heavy  gilding  fallen  from  some  per- 
ished kingly  vestment;  in  another  was  a  downfall  of 
golden  leaves  and  flowers;  and,  amid  this  profusion 
of  thin  fine  fragments,  were  rings,  bracelets,  smaller 
crowns  as  if  for  children,  dainty  butterflies  for  orna- 
ments of  dresses,  and  that  golden  flower  on  a  silver 
stalk  —  all  of  pure,  soft  gold,  unhardened  by  alloy, 
the  delicate  films  of  which  one  must  touch  but  lightly, 
yet  twisted  and  beaten,  by  hand  and  hammer,  into 
wavy,  spiral  relief,  the  cuttle-fish  with  its  long  undu- 
lating arms  appearing  frequently. 

It  is  the  very  image  of  the  old  luxurious  life  of  the 
princes  of  the  heroic  age,  as  Homer  describes  it, 
with  the  arts  in  service  to  its  kingly  pride.  Among 
the  other  costly  objects  was  one  representing  the 
head  of  a  cow,  grandly  designed  in  gold  with  horns 
of  silver,  like  the  horns  of  the  moon,  supposed  to  be 
symbolical  of  Here,  the  great  object  of  worship  at 
Argos.  One  of  the  interests  of  the  study  of  mythol- 
ogy is  that  it  reflects  the  ways  of  life  and  thought  of 
the  people  who  conceived  it;  and  this  religion  of 


THE   HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          223 

Here,  the  special  religion  of  Argos,  is  congruous 
with  what  has  been  here  said  as  to  the  place  of  art 
in  the  civilisation  of  the  Argives;  it  is  a  reflexion  of 
that  splendid  and  wanton  old  feudal  life.  For  Here 
is,  in  her  original  essence  and  meaning,  equivalent 
to  Demeter  —  the  one  living  spirit  of  the  earth, 
divined  behind  the  veil  of  all  its  manifold  visible 
energies.  But  in  the  development  of  a  common 
mythological  motive  the  various  peoples  are  subject 
to  the  general  limitations  of  their  life  and  thought; 
they  can  but  work  outward  what  is  within  them;  and 
the  religious  conceptions  and  usages,  ultimately  de- 
rivable from  one  and  the  same  rudimentary  instinct, 
are  sometimes  most  diverse.  Out  of  the  visible, 
physical  energies  of  the  earth  and  its  system  of  annual 
change,  the  old  Pelasgian  mind  developed  the  person 
of  Demeter,  mystical  and  profoundly  aweful,  yet  pro- 
foundly pathetic,  also,  in  her  appeal  to  human  sym- 
pathies. Out  of  the  same  original  elements,  the 
civilisation  of  Argos,  on  the  other  hand,  develops 
the  religion  of  Queen  Here,  a  mere  Demeter,  at  best, 
of  gaudy  flower-beds,  whose  toilet  Homer  describes 
with  all  its  delicate  fineries;  though,  characteristi- 
cally, he  may  still  allow  us  to  detect,  perhaps,  some 
traces  of  the  mystical  person  of  the  earth,  in  the  all- 
pervading  scent  of  the  ambrosial  unguent  with  which 


224         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

she  anoints  herself,  in  the  abundant  tresses  of  her 
hair,  and  in  the  curious  variegation  of  her  ornaments. 
She  has  become,  though  with  some  reminiscence  of 
the  mystical  earth,  a  very  limited  human  person, 
wicked,  angry,  jealous  —  the  lady  of  Zeus  in  her 
castle-sanctuary  at  Mycenae,  in  wanton  dalliance 
with  the  king,  coaxing  him  for  cruel  purposes  in 
sweet  sleep,  adding  artificial  charms  to  her  beauty. 

Such  are  some  of  the  characteristics  with  which 
Greek  art  is  discernible  in  that  earliest  age.  Of 
themselves,  they  almost  answer  the  question  which 
next  arises  —  Whence  did  art  come  to  Greece?  or 
was  it  a  thing  of  absolutely  native  growth  there  ?  So 
some  have  decidedly  maintained.  Others,  who  lived 
in  an  age  possessing  little  or  no  knowledge  of  Greek 
monuments  anterior  to  the  full  development  of  art 
under  Pheidias,  and  who,  in  regard  to  the  Greek 
sculpture  of  the  age  of  Pheidias,  were  like  people 
criticising  Michelangelo,  without  knowledge  of  the 
earlier  Tuscan  school  —  of  the  works  of  Donatello 
and  Mino  da  Fiesole  —  easily  satisfied  themselves 
with  theories  of  its  importation  ready-made  from 
other  countries.  Critics  in  the  last  century,  espe- 
cially, noticing  some  characteristics  which  early  Greek 
work  has  in  common,  indeed,  with  Egyptian  art, 
but  which  are  common  also  to  all  such  early  work 


THE   HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          225 

everywhere,  supposed,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  it 
came,  as  the  Greek  religion  also,  from  Egypt  —  that 
old,  immemorial,  half-known  birthplace  of  all  won- 
derful things.  There  are,  it  is  true,  authorities  for 
this  derivation  among  the  Greeks  themselves,  dazzled 
as  they  were  by  the  marvels  of  the  ancient  civilisa- 
tion of  Egypt,  a  civilisation  so  different  from  their 
own,  on  the  first  opening  of  Egypt  to  Greek  visitors. 
But,  in  fact,  that  opening  did  not  take  place  till  the 
reign  of  Psammetichus,  about  the  middle  of  the 
seventh  century  B.C.,  a  relatively  late  date.  Psam- 
metichus introduced  and  settled  Greek  mercenaries 
in  Egypt,  and,  for  a  time,  the  Greeks  came  very  close 
to  Egyptian  life.  They  can  hardly  fail  to  have  been 
stimulated  by  that  display  of  every  kind  of  artistic 
workmanship  gleaming  over  the  whole  of  life;  they 
may  in  turn1  have  freshened  it  with  new  motives. 
And  we  may  remark,  that  but  for  the  peculiar  usage 
of  Egypt  concerning  the  tombs  of  the  dead,  but  for 
their  habit  of  investing  the  last  abodes  of  the  dead 
with  all  the  appurtenances  of  active  life,  out  of  that 
whole  world  of  art,  so  various  and  elaborate,  nothing 
but  the  great,  monumental  works  in  stone  would  have 
remained  to  ourselves.  We  should  have  experienced 
in  regard  to  it,  what  we  actually  experience  too  much 
in  our  knowledge  of  Greek  art  —  the  lack  of  a  fitting 
Q 


226          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

background,  in  the  smaller  tectonic  work,  for  its 
great  works  in  architecture,  and  the  bolder  sort  of 
sculpture. 

But,  one  by  one,  at  last,  as  in  the  medieval  par- 
allel, monuments  illustrative  of  the  earlier  growth  of 
Greek  art  before  the  time  of  Pheidias  have  come  to 
light,  and  to  a  just  appreciation.  They  show  that 
the  development  of  Greek  art  had  already  proceeded 
some  way  before  the  opening  of  Egypt  to  the  Greeks, 
and  point,  if  to  a  foreign  source  at  all,  to  oriental 
rather  than  Egyptian  influences;  and  the  theory 
which  derived  Greek  art,  with  many  other  Greek 
things,  from  Egypt,  now  hardly  finds  supporters.  In 
Greece  all  things  are  at  once  old  and  new.  As,  in 
physical  organisms,  the  actual  particles  of  matter 
have  existed  long  before  in  other  combinations;  and 
what  is  really  new  in  a  new  organism  is  the  new  co- 
hering force  —  the  mode  of  life  —  so,  in  the  products 
of  Greek  civilisation,  the  actual  elements  are  tracea- 
ble elsewhere  by  antiquarians  who  care  to  trace  them; 
the  elements,  for  instance,  of  its  peculiar  national 
architecture.  Yet  all  is  also  emphatically  autochtho- 
nous, as  the  Greeks  said,  new-born  at  home,  by  right 
of  a  new,  informing,  combining  spirit  playing  over 
those  mere  elements,  and  touching  them,  above  all, 
with  a  wonderful  sense  of  the  nature  and  destiny  of 


THE   HEROIC   AGE   OF  GREEK   ART          227 

man  —  the  dignity  of  his  soul  and  of  his  body  —  so 
that  in  all  things  the  Greeks  are  as  discoverers.  Still, 
the  original  and  primary  motive  seems,  in  matters 
of  art,  to  have  come  from  without;  and  the  view  to 
which  actual  discovery  and  all  true  analogies  more 
and  more  point  is  that  of  a  connexion  of  the  origin 
of  Greek  art,  ultimately  with  Assyria,  proximately 
with  Phoenicia,  partly  through  Asia  Minor,  and  chiefly 
through  Cyprus  —  an  original  connexion  again  and 
again  reasserted,  like  a  surviving  trick  of  inheritance, 
as  in  later  times  it  came  in  contact  with  the  civilisa- 
tion of  Caria  and  Lycia,  old  affinities  being  here 
linked  anew;  and  with  a  certain  Asiatic  tradition, 
of  which  one  representative  is  the  Ionic  style  of 
architecture,  traceable  all  through  Greek  art  —  an 
Asiatic  curiousness,  or  TrotKiXta,  strongest  in  that 
heroic  age  of  which  I  have  been  speaking,  and  dis- 
tinguishing some  schools  and  masters  in  Greece  more 
than  others;  and  always  in  appreciable  distinction 
from  the  more  clearly  defined  and  self-asserted  Hel- 
lenic influence.  Homer  himself  witnesses  to  the 
intercourse,  through  early,  adventurous  commerce, 
as  in  the  bright  and  animated  picture  with  which  the 
history  of  Herodotus  begins,  between  the  Greeks  and 
Eastern  countries.  We  may,  perhaps,  forget  some- 
times, thinking  over  the  greatness  of  its  place  in  the 


228         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK    SCULPTURE 

history  of  civilisation,  how  small  a  country  Greece 
really  was;  how  short  the  distances  onwards,  from 
island  to  island,  to  the  coast  of  Asia,  so  that  we  can 
hardly  make  a  sharp  separation  between  Asia  and 
Greece,  nor  deny,  besides  great  and  palpable  acts  of 
importation,  all  sorts  of  impalpable  Asiatic  influ- 
ences, by  way  alike  of  attraction  and  repulsion,  upon 
Greek  manners  and  taste.  Homer,  as  we  saw,  was 
right  in  making  Troy  essentially  a  Greek  city,  with 
inhabitants  superior  in  all  culture  to  their  kinsmen 
on  the  Western  shore,  and  perhaps  proportionally 
weaker  on  the  practical  or  moral  side,  and  with  an 
element  of  languid  Ionian  voluptuousness  in  them, 
typified  by  the  cedar  and  gold  of  the  chamber  of 
Paris  —  an  element  which  the  austere,  more  strictly 
European  influence  of  the  Dorian  Apollo  will  one 
day  correct  in  all  genuine  Greeks.  The  ^Egean, 
with  its  islands,  is,  then,  a  bond  of  union,  not  a  bar- 
rier; and  we  must  think  of  Greece,  as  has  been 
rightly  said,  as  its  whole  continuous  shore. 

The  characteristics  of  Greek  art,  indeed,  in  the 
heroic  age,  so  far  as  we  can  discern  them,  are  those 
also  of  Phoenician  art,  its  delight  in  metal  among  the 
rest,  of  metal  especially  as  an  element  in  architect- 
ure, the  covering  of  everything  with  plates  of  metal. 
It  was  from  Phoenicia  that  the  costly  material  in 


THE   HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART          229 

which  early  Greek  art  delighted  actually  came  — 
ivory,  amber,  much  of  the  precious  metals.  These 
the  adventurous  Phoenician  traders  brought  in  return 
for  the  mussel  which  contained  the  famous  purple, 
in  quest  of  which  they  penetrated  far  into  all  the 
Greek  havens.  Recent  discoveries  present  the  island 
of  Cyprus,  the  great  source  of  copper  and  copper- 
work  in  ancient  times,  as  the  special  mediator  be- 
tween the  art  of  Phoenicia  and  Greece;  and  in  some 
archaic  figures  of  Aphrodite  with  her  dove,  brought 
from  Cyprus  and  now  in  the  British  Museum  —  ob- 
jects you  might  think,  at  first  sight,  taken  from  the 
niches  of  a  French  Gothic  cathedral  —  are  some  of 
the  beginnings,  at  least,  of  Greek  sculpture  mani- 
festly under  the  influence  of  Phoenician  masters. 
And,  again,  mythology  is  the  reflex  of  characteristic 
facts.  It  is  through  Cyprus  that  the  religion  of 
Aphrodite  comes  from  Phoenicia  to  Greece.  Here, 
in  Cyprus,  she  is  connected  with  some  other  kindred 
elements  of  mythological  tradition,  above  all  with 
the  beautiful  old  story  of  Pygmalion,  in  which  the 
thoughts  of  art  and  love  are  connected  so  closely 
together.  First  of  all,  on  the  prows  of  the  Phoeni- 
cian ships,  the  tutelary  image  of  Aphrodite  Euplosa, 
the  protectress  of  sailors,  comes  to  Cyprus  —  to 
Cythera;  it  is  in  this  simplest  sense  that  she  is, 


230         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

primarily,  Anadyomene.  And  her  connexion  with 
the  arts  is  always  an  intimate  one.  In  Cyprus  her 
worship  is  connected  with  an  architecture,  not  colos- 
sal, but  full  of  dainty  splendour  —  the  art  of  the 
shrine-maker,  the  maker  of  reliquaries;  the  art  of 
the  toilet,  the  toilet  of  Aphrodite;  the  Homeric 
hymn  to  Aphrodite  is  full  of  all  that;  delight  in 
which  we  have  seen  to  be  characteristic  of  the  true 
Homer. 

And  now  we  see  why  Hephaestus,  that  crook-backed 
and  uncomely  god,  is  the  husband  of  Aphrodite. 
Hephaestus  is  the  god  of  fire,  indeed;  as  fire  he  is 
flung  from  heaven  by  Zeus;  and  in  the  marvellous 
contest  between  Achilles  and  the  river  Xanthus  in 
the  twenty-first  book  of  the  Iliad,  he  intervenes  in 
favour  of  the  hero,  as  mere  fire  against  water.  But 
he  soon  ceases  to  be  thus  generally  representative  of 
the  functions  of  fire,  and  becomes  almost  exclusively 
representative  of  one  only  of  its  aspects,  its  function, 
namely,  in  regard  to  early  art;  he  becomes  the  patron 
of  smiths,  bent  with  his  labour  at  the  forge,  as  people 
had  seen  such  real  workers;  he  is  the  most  perfectly 
developed  of  all  the  Daedali,  Mulcibers,  or  Cabeiri. 
That  the  god  of  fire  becomes  the  god  of  all  art,  archi- 
tecture included,  so  that  he  makes  the  houses  of  the 
gods,  and  is  also  the  husband  of  Aphrodite,  marks  a 


THE   HEROIC   AGE  OF   GREEK   ART          231 

threefold  group  of  facts;  the  prominence,  first,  of  a 
peculiar  kind  of  art  in  early  Greece,  that  beautiful 
metal-work,  with  which  he  is  bound  and  bent; 
secondly,  the  connexion  of  this,  through  Aphrodite, 
with  an  almost  wanton  personal  splendour;  the  con- 
nexion, thirdly,  of  all  this  with  Cyprus  and  Phoenicia, 
whence,  literally,  Aphrodite  comes.  Hephaestus  is 
the  "  spiritual  form  "  of  the  Asiatic  element  in  Greek 
art. 

This,  then,  is  the  situation  which  the  first  period 
of  Greek  art  comprehends;  a  people  whose  civilisa- 
tion is  still  young,  delighting,  as  the  young  do,  in 
ornament,  in  the  sensuous  beauty  of  ivory  and  gold, 
in  all  the  lovely  productions  of  skilled  fingers.  They 
receive  all  this,  together  with  the  worship  of  Aphro- 
dite, by  way  of  Cyprus,  from  Phoenicia,  from  the 
older,  decrepit  Eastern  civilisation,  itself  long  since 
surfeited  with  that  splendour;  and  they  receive  it  in 
frugal  quantity,  so  frugal  that  their  thoughts  always 
go  back  to  the  East,  where  there  is  the  fulness  of  it, 
as  to  a  wonder-land  of  art.  Received  thus  in  frugal 
quantity,  through  many  generations,  that  world  of 
Asiatic  tectonics  stimulates  the  sensuous  capacity  in 
them,  accustoms  the  hand  to  produce  and  the  eye  to 
appreciate  the  more  delicately  enjoyable  qualities  of 
material  things.  But  nowhere  in  all  this  various  and 


232         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

exquisite  world  of  design  is  there  as  yet  any  adequate 
sense  of  man  himself,  nowhere  is  there  an  insight 
into  or  power  over  human  form  as  the  expression  of 
human  soul.  Yet  those  arts  of  design  in  which  that 
younger  people  delights  have  in  them  already,  as 
designed  work,  that  spirit  of  reasonable  order,  that 
expressive  congruity  in  the  adaptation  of  means  to 
ends,  of  which  the  fully  developed  admirableness  of 
human  form  is  but  the  consummation  —  a  consum- 
mation already  anticipated  in  the  grand  and  animated 
figures  of  -epic  poetry,  their  power  of  thought,  their 
laughter  and  tears.  Under  the  hands  of  that  younger 
people,  as  they  imitate  and  pass  largely  and  freely 
beyond  those  older  craftsmen,  the  fire  of  the  reasona- 
ble soul  will  kindle,  little  by  little,  up  to  the  Theseus 
of  the  Parthenon  and  the  Venus  of  Melos. 

The  ideal  aim  of  Greek  sculpture,  as  of  all  other 
art,  is  to  deal,  indeed,  with  the  deepest  elements  of 
man's  nature  and  destiny,  to  command  and  express 
these,  but  to  deal  with  them  in  a  manner,  and  with 
a  kind  of  expression,  as  clear  and  graceful  and  sim- 
ple, if  it  may  be,  as  that  of  the  Japanese  flower- 
painter.  And  what  the  student  of  Greek  sculpture 
has  to  cultivate  generally  in  himself  is  the  capacity 
for  appreciating  the  expression  of  thought  in  outward 
form,  the  constant  habit  of  associating  sense  with 


THE   HEROIC   AGE   OF   GREEK  ART          233 

soul,  of  tracing  what  we  call  expression  to  its  sources. 
But,  concurrently  with  this,  he  must  also  cultivate, 
all  along,  a  not  less  equally  constant  appreciation  of 
intelligent  workmanship  in  work,  and  of  design  in 
things  designed,  of  the  rational  control  of  matter 
everywhere.  From  many  sources  he  may  feed  this 
sense  of  intelligence  and  design  in  the  productions 
of  the  minor  crafts,  above  all  in  the  various  and 
exquisite  art  of  Japan.  Carrying  a  delicacy  like  that 
of  nature  itself  into  every  form  of  imitation,  repro- 
duction and  combination  —  leaf  and  flower,  fish  and 
bird,  reed  and  water  —  and  failing  only  when  it 
touches  the  sacred  human  form,  that  art  of  Japan  is 
not  so  unlike  the  earliest  stages  of  Greek  art  as  might 
at  first  sight  be  supposed.  We  have  here,  and  in  no 
mere  fragments,  the  spectacle  of  a  universal  applica- 
tion to  the  instruments  of  daily  life  of  fitness  and 
beauty,  in  a  temper  still  unsophisticated,  as  also  un- 
elevated,  by  the  divination  of  the  spirit  of  man. 
And  at  least  the  student  must  always  remember  that 
Greek  art  was  throughout  a  much  richer  and  warmer 
thing,  at  once  with  more  shadows,  and  more  of  a 
dim  magnificence  in  its  surroundings,  than  the  illus- 
trations of  a  classical  dictionary  might  induce  him 
to  think.  Some  of  the  ancient  temples  of  Greece 
were  as  rich  in  aesthetic  curiosities  as  a  famous 


234         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 


modern  museum.  That  Asiatic  woiKiXia,  that  spirit 
of  minute  and  curious  loveliness,  follows  the  bolder 
imaginative  efforts  of  Greek  art  all  through  its  his- 
tory, and  one  can  hardly  be  too  careful  in  keeping 
up  the  sense  of  this  daintiness  of  execution  through 
the  entire  course  of  its  development.  It  is  not  only 
that  the  minute  object  of  art,  the  tiny  vase-painting, 
intaglio,  coin,  or  cameo,  often  reduces  into  the  palm 
of  the  hand  lines  grander  than  those  of  many  a  life- 
sized  or  colossal  figure;  but  there  is  also  a  sense  in 
which  it  may  be  said  that  the  Venus  of  Melos,  for 
instance,  is  but  a  supremely  well-  executed  object  of 
vertu,  in  the  most  limited  sense  of  the  term.  Those 
solemn  images  of  the  temple  of  Theseus  are  a  perfect 
embodiment  of  the  human  ideal,  of  the  reasonable 
soul  and  of  a  spiritual  world;  they  are  also  the  best 
made  things  of  their  kind,  as  an  urn  or  a  cup  is  well 
made. 

A  perfect,  many-sided  development  of  tectonic 
crafts,  a  state  such  as  the  art  of  some  nations  has 
ended  in,  becomes  for  the  Greeks  a  mere  opportu- 
nity, a  mere  starting-ground  for  their  imaginative 
presentment  of  man,  moral  and  inspired.  A  world 
of  material  splendour,  moulded  clay,  beaten  gold, 
polished  stone  ;  —  the  informing,  reasonable  soul 
entering  into  that,  reclaiming  the  metal  and  stone 


THE   HEROIC  AGE  OF  GREEK  ART  235 

and  clay,  till  they  are  as  full  of  living  breath  as  the 
real  warm  body  itself;  the  presence  of  those  two  ele- 
ments is  continuous  throughout  the  fortunes  of  Greek 
art  after  the  heroic  age,  and  the  constant  right  esti- 
mate of  their  action  and  reaction,  from  period  to 
period,  its  true  philosophy. 


236          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 


II.  THE  AGE   OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES 

Critics  of  Greek  sculpture  have  often  spoken  of  it 
as  if  it  had  been  always  work  in  colourless  stone, 
against  an  almost  colourless  background.  Its  real 
background,  as  I  have  tried  to  show,  was  a  world  of 
exquisite  craftsmanship,  touching  the  minutest  de- 
tails of  daily  life  with  splendour  and  skill,  in  close 
correspondence  with  a  peculiarly  animated  develop- 
ment of  human  existence  —  the  energetic  movement 
and  stir  of  typically  noble  human  forms,  quite  worth- 
ily clothed  —  amid  scenery  as  poetic  as  Titian's.  If 
shapes  of  colourless  stone  did  come  into  that  back- 
ground, it  was  as  the  undraped  human  form  comes 
into  some  of  Titian's  pictures,  only  to  cool  and  sol- 

• 

emnise  its  splendour;  the  work  of  the  Greek  sculp- 
tor being  seldom  in  quite  colourless  stone,  nor  always 
or  chiefly  in  fastidiously  selected  marble  even,  but 
often  in  richly  toned  metal,  (this  or  that  sculptor 
preferring  some  special  variety  of  the  bronze  he 
worked  in,  such  as  the  hepatizon  or  liver-coloured 
bronze,  or  the  bright  golden  alloy  of  Corinth,)  and 
in  its  consummate  products  chryselephantine,  — work 
in  gold  and  ivory,  on  a  core  of  cedar.  Pheidias,  in 


THE  AGE   OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  237 

the  Olympian  Zeus,  in  the  Athene  of  the  Parthenon, 
fulfils  what  that  primitive,  heroic  goldsmiths'  age, 
dimly  discerned  in  Homer,  already  delighted  in; 
and  the  celebrated  work  of  which  I  have  first  to  speak 
now,  and  with  which  Greek  sculpture  emerges  from 
that  half-mythical  age  and  becomes  in  a  certain  sense 
historical,  is  a  link  in  that  goldsmiths'  or  chrysele- 
phantine tradition,  carrying  us  forwards  to  the  work 
of  Pheidias,  backwards  to  the  elaborate  Asiatic  fur- 
niture of  the  chamber  of  Paris. 

When  Pausanias  visited  Olympia,  towards  the  end 
of  the  second  century  after  Christ,  he  beheld,  among 
other  precious  objects  in  the  temple  of  Here,  a 
splendidly  wrought  treasure-chest  of  cedar-wood,  in 
which,  according  to  a  legend,  quick  as  usual  with 
the  true  human  colouring,  the  mother  of  Cypselus 
had  hidden  him,  when  a  child,  from  the  enmity  of 
her  family,  the  Bacchiadce,  then  the  nobility  of  Cor- 
inth. The  child,  named  Cypselus  after  this  incident, 
(Cypsele  being  a  Corinthian  word  for  chest,)  became 
tyrant  of  Corinth,  and  his  grateful  descendants,  as  it 
was  said,  offered  the  beautiful  old  chest  to  the  temple 
of  Here,  as  a  memorial  of  his  preservation.  That 
would  have  been  not  long  after  the  year  625  B.C. 
So  much  for  the  story  which  Pausanias  heard  —  but 
inherent  probability,  and  some  points  of  detail  in 


238          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

his  description,  tend  to  fix  the  origin  of  the  chest  at 
a  date  at  least  somewhat  later;  and  as  Herodotus, 
telling  the  story  of  the  concealment  of  Cypselus,  does 
not  mention  the  dedication  of  the  chest  at  Olympia 
at  all,  it  may  perhaps  have  been  only  one  of  many 
later  imitations  of  antique  art.  But,  whatever  its 
date,  Pausanias  certainly  saw  the  thing,  and  has  left 
a  long  description  of  it,  and  we  may  trust  his  judg- 
ment at  least  as  to  its  archaic  style.  We  have  here, 
then,  something  plainly  visible  at  a  comparatively 
recent  date,  something  quite  different  from  those 
perhaps  wholly  mythical  objects  described  in  Homer, 
—  an  object  which  seemed  to  so  experienced  an  ob- 
server as  Pausanias  an  actual  work  of  earliest  Greek 
art.  Relatively  to  later  Greek  art,  it  may  have 
seemed  to  him,  what  the  ancient  bronze  doors  with 
their  Scripture  histories,  which  we  may  still  see  in 
the  south  transept  of  the  cathedral  of  Pisa,  are  to 
later  Italian  art. 

Pausanias  tells  us  nothing  as  to  its  size,  nor  di- 
rectly as  to  its  shape.  It  may,  for  anything  he  says, 
have  been  oval,  but  it  was  probably  rectangular,  with 
a  broad  front  and  two  narrow  sides,  standing,  as  the 
maker  of  it  had  designed,  against  the  wall;  for,  in 
enumerating  the  various  subjects  wrought  upon  it,  in 
five  rows  one  above  another,  he  seems  to  proceed, 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES      239 

beginning  at  the  bottom  on  the  right-hand  side,  along 
the  front  from  right  to  left,  and  then  back  again, 
through  the  second  row  from  left  to  right,  and,  alter- 
nating thus,  upwards  to  the  last  subject,  at  the  top, 
on  the  left-hand  side. 

The  subjects  represented,  most  of  which  had  their 
legends  attached  in  difficult  archaic  writing,  were 
taken  freely,  though  probably  with  a  leading  idea, 
out  of  various  poetic  cycles,  as  treated  in  the  works 
of  those  so-called  cyclic  poets,  who  continued  the 
Homeric  tradition.  Pausanias  speaks,  as  Homer 
does  in  his  description  of  the  shield  of  Achilles,  of 
a  kind  and  amount  of  expression  in  feature  and 
gesture  certainly  beyond  the  compass  of  any  early 
art,  and  we  may  believe  we  have  in  these  touches  only 
what  the  visitor  heard  from  enthusiastic  exegetce,  the 
interpreters  or  sacristans;  though  any  one  who  has 
seen  the  Bayeux  tapestry,  for  instance,  must  recog- 
nise the  pathos  and  energy  of  which,  when  really 
prompted  by  genius,  even  the  earliest  hand  is  capa- 
ble. Some  ingenious  attempts  have  been  made  to 
restore  the  grouping  of  the  scenes,  with  a  certain 
formal  expansion  or  balancing  of  subjects,  their  fig- 
ures and  dimensions,  in  true  Assyrian  manner,  on  the 
front  and  sides.  We  notice  some  fine  emblematic 
figures,  the  germs  of  great  artistic  motives  in  after 


240          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

times,  already  playing  their  parts  there,  —  Death,  and 
Sleep,  and  Night.  "There  was  a  woman  supporting 
on  her  right  arm  a  white  child  sleeping;  and  on  the 
other  arm  she  held  a  dark  child,  as  if  asleep;  and 
they  lay  with  their  feet  crossed.  And  the  inscrip- 
tion shows,  what  might  be  understood  without  it, 
that  they  are  Death  and  Sleep,  and  Night,  the  nurse 
of  both  of  them." 

But  what  is  most  noticeable  is,  as  I  have  already 
said,  that  this  work,  like  the  chamber  of  Paris,  like 
the  Zeus  of  Pheidias,  is  chryselephantine,  its  main 
fabric  cedar,  and  the  figures  upon  it  partly  of  ivory, 
partly  of  gold,1  but  (and  this  is  the  most  peculiar 
characteristic  of  its  style)  partly  wrought  out  of  the 
wood  of  the  chest  itself.  And,  as  we  read  the  de- 
scription, we  can  hardly -help  distributing  in  fancy 
gold  and  ivory,  respectively,  to  their  appropriate 
functions  in  the  representation.  The  cup  of  Diony- 
sus, and  the  wings  of  certain  horses  there,  Pausanias 
himself  tells  us  were  golden.  Were  not  the  apples 
of  the  Hesperides,  the  necklace  of  Eriphyle,  the 
bridles,  the  armour,  the  unsheathed  sword  in  the  hand 
of  Amphiaraus,  also  of  gold?  Were  not  the  other 
children,  like  the  white  image  of  Sleep,  especially 

l  Xpvo-oCi/  is  the  word  Pausanias  uses,  of  the  cup  in  the  hand  of 
Dionysus  —  the  wood  w&sp/ated  with  gold. 


THE   AGE   OF   GRAVEN   IMAGES  241 

the  naked  child  Alcmseon,  of  ivory?  with  Alcestis 
and  Helen,  and  that  one  of  the  Dioscuri  whose  beard 
was  still  ungrown?  Were  not  ivory  and  gold,  again, 
combined  in  the  throne  of  Hercules,  and  in  the 
three  goddesses  conducted  before  Paris? 

The  "  chest  of  Cypselus  "  fitly  introduces  the  first 
historical  period  of  Greek  art,  a  period  coming 
down  to  about  the  year  560  B.C.,  and  the  government 
of  Pisistratus  at  Athens;  a  period  of  tyrants  like 
Cypselus  and  Pisistratus  himself,  men  of  strong, 
sometimes  unscrupulous  individuality,  but  often  also 
acute  and  cultivated  patrons  of  the  arts.  It  begins 
with  a  series  of  inventions,  one  here  and  another 
there, —  inventions  still  for  the  most  part  technical, 
but  which  are  attached  to  single  names;  for,  with  the 
growth  of  art,  the  influence  of  individuals,  gifted  for 
the  opening  of  new  ways,  more  and  more  defines 
itself;  and  the  school,  open  to  all  comers,  from 
which  in  turn  the  disciples  may  pass  to  all  parts  of 
Greece,  takes  the  place  of  the  family,  in  which  the 
knowledge  of  art  descends  as  a  tradition  from  father 
to  son,  or  of  the  mere  trade-guild.  Of  these  early 
industries  we  know  little  but  the  stray  notices  of 
Pausanias,  often  ambiguous,  always  of  doubtful  credi- 
bility. What  we  do  see,  through  these  imperfect 
notices,  is  a  real  period  of  animated  artistic  activity, 


242          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

richly  rewarded.  Byzes  of  Naxos,  for  instance,  is 
recorded  as  having  first  adopted  the  plan  of  sawing 
marble  into  thin  plates  for  use  on  the  roofs  of  tem- 
ples instead  of  tiles;  and  that  his  name  has  come 
down  to  us  at  all,  testifies  to  the  impression  this  fair 
white  surface  made  on  its  first  spectators.  Various 
islands  of  the  ^Egean  become  each  the  source  of 
some  new  artistic  device.  It  is  a  period  still  under 
the  reign  of  Hephaestus,  delighting,  above  all,  in 
magnificent  metal-work.  "The  Samians,"  says  He- 
rodotus, "  out  of  a  tenth  part  of  their  profits  —  a  sum 
of  six  talents  —  caused  a  mixing  vessel  of  bronze  to 
be  made,  after  the  Argolic  fashion;  around  it  are 
projections  of  griffins'  heads;  and  they  dedicated  it 
in  the  temple  of  Here,  placing  beneath  it  three 
colossal  figures  of  bronze,  seven  cubits  in  height, 
leaning  upon  their  knees."  That  was  in  the  thirty- 
seventh  Olympiad,  and  may  be  regarded  as  character- 
istic of  the  age.  For  the  popular  imagination,  a 
kind  of  glamour,  some  mysterious  connexion  of  the 
thing  with  human  fortunes,  still  attaches  to  the  curi- 
ous product  of  artistic  hands,  to  the  ring  of  Poly- 
crates,  for  instance,  with  its  early  specimen  of 
engraved  smaragdus,  as  to  the  mythical  necklace  of 
Harmonia.  Pheidon  of  Argos  first  makes  coined 
money,  and  the  obelisci — the  old  nail-shaped  iron 


THE   AGE   OF  GRAVEN   IMAGES  243 

money,  now  disused  —  are  hung  up  in  the  temple  of 
Here;  for,  even  thus  early,  the  temples  are  in  the 
way  of  becoming  museums.  Names  like  those  of 
Eucheir  and  Eugrammus,  who  were  said  to  have 
taken  the  art  of  baking  clay  vases  from  Samos  to 
Etruria,  have  still  a  legendary  air,  yet  may  be  real 
surnames;  as  in  the  case  of  Smilis,  whose  name  is 
derived  from  a  graver's  tool,  and  who  made  the  an- 
cient image  of  Here  at  Samos.  Corinth  —  mater 
statuaries  —  becomes  a  great  nursery  of  art  at  an 
early  time.  Some  time  before  the  twenty-ninth 
Olympiad,  Butades  of  Sicyon,  the  potter,  settled 
there.  The  record  of  early  inventions  in  Greece  is 
sometimes  fondly  coloured  with  human  sentiment  or 
incident.  It  is  on  the  butterfly  wing  of  such  an 
incident  —  the  love-sick  daughter  of  the  artist,  who 
outlines  on  the  wall  the  profile  of  her  lover  as  he 
sleeps  in  the  lamplight,  to  keep  by  her  in  absence 
—  that  the  name  of  Butades  the  potter  has  come 
down  to  us.  The  father  fills  up  the  outline,  long 
preserved,  it  was  believed,  in  the  Nymphaum  at  Cor- 
inth, and  hence  the  art  of  modelling  from  the  life 
in  clay.  He  learns,  further,  a  way  of  colouring  his 
clay  red,  and  fixes  his  masks  along  the  temple  eaves. 
The  temple  of  Athene  Chalcioecus  —  Athene  of  the 
brazen  house  —  at  Sparta,  the  work  of  Gitiades,  cele- 


244         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

brated  about  this  time  as  architect,  statuary,  and 
poet;  who  made,  besides  the  image  in  her  shrine, 
and  besides  other  Dorian  songs,  a  hymn  to  the  god- 
dess —  was  so  called  from  its  crust  or  lining  of  bronze 
plates,  setting  forth,  in  richly  embossed  imagery, 
various  subjects  of  ancient  legend.  What  Pausanias, 
who  saw  it,  describes,  is  like  an  elaborate  develop- 
ment of  that  method  of  covering  the  interiors  of 
stone  buildings  with  metal  plates,  of  which  the 
"Treasury"  at  Mycenae  is  the  earliest  historical,  and 
the  house  of  Alcinous  the  heroic,  type.  In  the  pages 
of  Pausanias,  that  glitter,  "as  of  the  moon  or  the 
sun,"  which  Ulysses  stood  still  to  wonder  at,  may 
still  be  felt.  And  on  the  right  hand  of  this  "  brazen 
house,"  he  tells  us,  stood  an  image  of  Zeus,  also  of 
bronze,  the  most  ancient  of  all  images  of  bronze. 
This  had  not  been  cast,  nor  wrought  out  of  a  single 
mass  of  metal,  but,  the  various  parts  having  been 
finished  separately  (probably  beaten  to  shape  with 
the  hammer  over  a  wooden  mould),  had  been  fitted 
together  with  nails  or  rivets.  That  was  the  earliest 
method  of  uniting  the  various  parts  of  a  work  in 
metal  —  image,  or  vessel,  or  breastplate  —  a  method 
allowing  of  much  dainty  handling  of  the  cunning 
pins  and  rivets,  and  one  which  has  its  place  still,  in 
perfectly  accomplished  metal-work,  as  in  the  eques- 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES      245 

trian  statue  of  Bartolommeo  Coleoni,  by  Andrea  Ver- 
rocchio,  in  the  piazza  of  St.  John  and  St.  Paul  at 
Venice.  In  the  British  Museum  there  is  a  very  early 
specimen  of  it, —  a  large  egg-shaped  vessel,  fitted 
together  of  several  pieces,  the  projecting  pins  or 
rivets,  forming  a  sort  of  diadem  round  the  middle, 
being  still  sharp  in  form  and  heavily  gilt.  That 
method  gave  place  in  time  to  a  defter  means  of  join- 
ing the  parts  together,  with  more  perfect  unity  and 
smoothness  of  surface,  the  art  of  soldering;  and  the 
invention  of  this  art  —  of  soldering  iron,  in  the  first 
instance  —  is  coupled  with  the  name  of  Glaucus  of 
Chios,  a  name  which,  in  connexion  with  this  and 
other  devices  for  facilitating  the  mechanical  pro- 
cesses of  art, —  for  perfecting  artistic  effect  with 
economy  of  labour, —  became  proverbial,  the  "art  of 
Glaucus  "  being  attributed  to  those  who  work  well 
with  rapidity  and  ease. 

Far  more  fruitful  still  was  the  invention  of  casting, 
of  casting  hollow  figures  especially,  attributed  to 
Rhoecus  and  Theodorus,  architects  of  the  great  tem- 
ple at  Samos.  Such  hollow  figures,  able,  in  conse- 
quence of  their  lightness,  to  rest,  almost  like  an 
inflated  bladder,  on  a  single  point  —  the  entire  bulk 
of  a  heroic  rider,  for  instance,  on  the  point  of  his 
horse's  tail  —  admit  of  a  much  freer  distribution  of 


246         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

the  whole  weight  or  mass  required,  than  is  possible 
in  any  other  mode  of  statuary;  and  the  invention  of 
the  art  of  casting  is  really  the  discovery  of  liberty  in 
composition.1 

And,  at  last,  about  the  year  576  B.C.,  we  come  to 
the  first  true  school  of  sculptors,  the  first  clear  exam- 
ple, as  we  seem  to  discern,  of  a  communicable  style, 
reflecting  and  interpreting  some  real  individuality 
(the  double  personality,  in  this  case,  of  two  brothers) 
in  the  masters  who  evolved  it,  conveyed  to  disciples 
who  came  to  acquire  it  from  distant  places,  and  tak- 
ing root  through  them  at  various  centres,  where  the 
names  of  the  masters  became  attached,  of  course,  to 
many  fair  works  really  by  the  hands  of  the  pupils. 
Dipcenus  and  Scyllis,  these  first  true  masters,  were 
born  in  Crete;  but  their  work  is  connected  mainly 
with  Sicyon,  at  that  time  the  chief  seat  of  Greek 

1  Pausanias,  in  recording  the  invention  of  casting,  uses  the  word 
e\<avfv<7avTol  but  does  not  tell  us  whether  the  model  was  of  wax,  as 
in  the  later  process;  which,  however,  is  believed  to  have  been  the 
case.  For  an  animated  account  of  the  modern  process  :  —  the  core 
of  plaister  roughly  presenting  the  designed  form  ;  the  modelling  of 
the  waxen  surface  thereon,  like  the  skin  upon  the  muscles,  with  all 
its  delicate  touches  —  vein  and  eyebrow;  —  the  hardening  of  the 
plaister  envelope,  layer  over  layer,  upon  this  delicately  finished 
model ;  the  melting  of  the  wax  by  heat,  leaving  behind  it  in  its 
place  the  finished  design  in  vacua,  which  the  molten  stream  of 
metal  subsequently  fills ;  released  finally,  after  cooling,  from  core 
and  envelope  —  see  Fortnum's  Handbook  of  Bronzes,  Chapter  II. 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES      247 

art.  "In  consequence  of  some  injury  done  them," 
it  is  said,  "while  employed  there  upon  certain  sacred 
images,  they  departed  to  another  place,  leaving  their 
work  unfinished;  and,  not  long  afterwards,  a  grievous 
famine  fell  upon  Sicyon.  Thereupon,  the  people  of 
Sicyon,  inquiring  of  the  Pythian  Apollo  how  they 
might  be  relieved,  it  was  answered  them,  '  if  Dipoenus 
and  Scyllis  should  finish  those  images  of  the  gods; ' 
which  thing  the  Sicyonians  obtained  from  them, 
humbly,  at  a  great  price."  That  story  too,  as  we 
shall  see,  illustrates  the  spirit  of  the  age.  For  their 
sculpture  they  used  the  white  marble  of  Paros,  being 
workers  in  marble  especially,  though  they  worked 
also  in  ebony  and  in  ivory,  and  made  use  of  gilding. 
"  Figures  of  cedar-wood,  partly  incruste  with  gold  " 
—  xeSpov  £w8ta  x/)vcra>  Si^i/^tcr/xeW  —  Pausanias  says 
exquisitely,  describing  a  certain  work  of  their  pupil, 
Dontas  of  Lacedaemon.  It  is  to  that  that  we  have 
definitely  come  at  last,  in  the  school  of  Dipoenus  and 
Scyllis. 

Dry  and  brief  as  these  details  may  seem,  they  are 
the  witness  to  an  active,  eager,  animated  period  of 
inventions  and  beginnings,  in  which  the  Greek 
workman  triumphs  over  the  first  rough  mechanical 
difficulties  which  beset  him  in  the  endeavour  to 
record  what  his  soul  conceived  of  the  form  of  priest 


248         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

or  athlete  then  alive  upon  the  earth,  or  of  the  ever- 
living  gods,  then  already  more  seldom  seen  upon  it. 
Our  own  fancy  must  fill  up  the  story  of  the  unre- 
corded patience  of  the  work-shop,  into  which  we 
seem  to  peep  through  these  scanty  notices  —  the 
fatigue,  the  disappointments,  the  steps  repeated, 
ending  at  last  in  that  moment  of  success,  which  is  all 
Pausanias  records,  somewhat  uncertainly. 

And  as  this  period  begins  with  the  chest  of  Cypse- 
lus,  so  it  ends  with  a  work  in  some  respects  similar, 
also  seen  and  described  by  Pausanias  —  the  throne, 
as  he  calls  it,  of  the  Amycltzan  Apollo.  It  was  the 
work  of  a  well-known  artist,  Bathycles  of  Magnesia, 
who,  probably  about  the  year  550  B.C.,  with  a  com- 
pany of  workmen,  came  to  the  little  ancient  town  of 
Amyclae,  near  Sparta,  a  place  full  of  traditions  of  the 
heroic  age.  He  had  been  invited  thither  to  perform 
a  peculiar  task  —  the  construction  of  a  throne ;  not 
like  the  throne  of  the  Olympian  Zeus,  and  others 
numerous  in  after  times,  for  a  seated  figure,  but  for 
the  image  of  the  local  Apollo;  no  other  than  a  rude 
and  very  ancient  pillar  of  bronze,  thirty  cubits  high, 
to  which,  Hermes-wise,  head,  arms  and  feet  were 
attached.  The  thing  stood  upright,  as  on  a  base, 
upon  a  kind  of  tomb  or  reliquary,  in  which,  accord- 
ing to  tradition,  lay  the  remains  of  the  young  prince 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN   IMAGES  249 

Hyacinth,  son  of  the  founder  of  that  place,  beloved 
by  Apollo  for  his  beauty,  and  accidentally  struck 
dead  by  him  in  play,  with  a  quoit.  From  the  drops 
of  the  lad's  blood  had  sprung  up  the  purple  flower 
of  his  name,  which  bears  on  its  petals  the  letters  of 
the  ejaculation  of  woe;  and  in  his  memory  the  fa- 
mous games  of  Amyclae  were  celebrated,  beginning 
about  the  time  of  the  longest  day,  when  the  flowers 
are  stricken  by  the  sun  and  begin  to  fade  —  a  festival 
marked,  amid  all  its  splendour,  with  some  real  mel- 
ancholy, and  serious  thought  of  the  dead.  In  the 
midst  of  the  "  throne  "  of  Bathycles,  this  sacred  re- 
ceptacle, with  the  strange,  half-humanised  pillar 
above  it,  was  to  stand,  probably  in  the  open  air, 
within  a  consecrated  enclosure.  Like  the  chest  of 
Cypselus,  the  throne  was  decorated  with  reliefs  of 
subjects  taken  from  epic  poetry,  and  it  had  support- 
ing figures.  Unfortunately,  what  Pausanias  tells  us 
of  this  monument  hardly  enables  one  to  present  it  to 
the  imagination  with  any  completeness  or  certainty; 
its  dimensions  he  himself  was  unable  exactly  to  ascer- 
tain, and  he  does  not  tell  us  its  material.  There  are 
reasons,  however,  for  supposing  that  it  was  of  metal; 
and  amid  these  ambiguities,  the  decorations  of  its 
base,  the  grave  or  altar-tomb  of  Hyacinth,  shine  out 
clearly,  and  are  also,  for  the  most  part,  clear  in  their 
significance. 


250          BEGINNINGS  OF   GREEK  SCULPTURE 

"  There  are  wrought  upon  the  altar  figures,  on  the 
one  side  of  Biris,  on  the  other  of  Amphitrite  and 
Poseidon.  Near  Zeus  and  Hermes,  in  speech  with 
each  other,  stand  Dionysus  and  Semele,  and,  beside 
her,  Ino.  Demeter,  Kore,  and  Pluto  are  also  wrought 
upon  it,  the  Fates  and  the  Seasons  above  them,  and 
with  them  Aphrodite,  Athene,  and  Artemis.  They 
are  conducting  Hyacinthus  to  heaven,  with  Polybrea, 
the  sister  of  Hyacinthus,  who  died,  as  is  told,  while 
yet  a  virgin.  .  .  .  Hercules  also  is  figured  on  the 
tomb;  he  too  carried  to  heaven  by  Athene  and  the 
other  gods.  The  daughters  of  Thestius  also  are  upon 
the  altar,  and  the  Seasons  again,  and  the  Muses." 

It  was  as  if  many  lines  of  solemn  thought  had  been 
meant  to  unite,  about  the  resting-place  of  this  local 
Adonis,  in  imageries  full  of  some  dim  promise  of 
immortal  life. 

But  it  was  not  so  much  in  care  for  old  idols  as  in 
the  making  of  new  ones  that  Greek  art  was  at  this 
time  engaged.  This  whole  first  period  of  Greek  art 
might,  indeed,  be  called  the  period  of  graven  images, 
and  all  its  workmen  sons  of  Daedalus;  for  Daedalus 
is  the  mythical,  or  all  but  mythical,  representative  of 
all  those  arts  which  are  combined  in  the  making  of 
lovelier  idols  than  had  heretofore  been  seen.  The 
old  Greek  word  which  is  at  the  root  of  the  name 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  251 

Daedalus,  the  name  of  a  craft  rather  than  a  proper 
name,  probably  means  to  work  curiously  —  all  curi- 
ously beautiful  wood- work  is  Daedal  work;  the  main 
point  about  the  curiously  beautiful  chamber  in  which 
Nausicaa  sleeps,  in  the  Odyssey,  being  that,  like 
some  exquisite  Swiss  chalet,  it  is  wrought  in  wood. 
But  it  came  about  that  those  workers  in  wood,  whom 
Daedalus  represents,  the  early  craftsmen  of  Crete 
especially,  were  chiefly  concerned  with  the  making 
of  religious  images,  like  the  carvers  of  Berchtesgaden 
and  Oberammergau,  the  sort  of  daintily  finished 
images  of  the  objects  of  public  or  private  devotion 
which  such  workmen  would  turn  out.  Wherever 
there  was  a  wooden  idol  in  any  way  fairer  than 
others,  finished,  perhaps,  sometimes,  with  colour  and 
gilding,  and  appropriate  real  dress,  there  the  hand 
of  Daedalus  had  been.  That  such  images  were  quite 
detached  from  pillar  or  wall,  that  they  stood  free, 
and  were  statues  in  the  proper  sense,  showed  that 
Greek  art  was  already  liberated  from  its  earlier  East- 
ern associations;  such  free-standing  being  apparently 
unknown  in  Assyrian  art.  And  then,  the  effect  of 
this  Daedal  skill  in  them  was,  that  they  came  nearer 
to  the  proper  form  of  humanity.  It  is  the  wonderful 
life-likeness  of  these  early  images  which  tradition 
celebrates  in  many  anecdotes,  showing  a  very  early 


252         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

instinctive  turn  for,  and  delight  in  naturalism,  in  the 
Greek  temper.  As  Cimabue,  in  his  day,  was  able  to 
charm  men,  almost  as  with  illusion,  by  the  simple 
device  of  half-closing  the  eyelids  of  his  personages, 
and  giving  them,  instead  of  round  eyes,  eyes  that 
seemed  to  be  in  some  degree  sentient,  and  to  feel  the 
lights;  so  the  marvellous  progress  in  those  Daedal 
wooden  images  was,  that  the  eyes  were  open,  so  that 
they  seemed  to  look,  — the  feet  separated,  so  that 
they  seemed  to  walk.  Greek  art  is  thus,  almost  from 
the  first,  essentially  distinguished  from  the  art  of 
Egypt,  by  an  energetic  striving  after  truth  in  organic 
form.  In  representing  the  human  figure,  Egyptian 
art  had  held  by  mathematical  or  mechanical  propor- 
tions exclusively.  The  Greek  apprehends  of  it,  as 
the  main  truth,  that  it  is  a  living  organism,  with 
freedom  of  movement,  and  hence  the  infinite  possi- 
bilities of  motion,  and  of  expression  by  motion,  with 
which  the  imagination  credits  the  higher  sort  of 
Greek  sculpture;  while  the  figures  of  Egyptian  art, 
graceful  as  they  often  are,  seem  absolutely  incapable 
of  any  motion  or  gesture,  other  than  the  one  actually 
designed.  The  work  of  the  Greek  sculptor,  together 
with  its  more  real  anatomy,  becomes  full  also  of 
human  soul. 

That  old,  primitive,  mystical,  first  period  of  Greek 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  253 

religion,  with  its  profound,  though  half-conscious, 
intuitions  of  spiritual  powers  in  the  natural  world, 
attaching  itself  not  to  the  worship  of  visible  human 
forms,  but  to  relics,  to  natural  or  half-natural  objects 
—  the  roughly  hewn  tree,  the  unwrought  stone,  the 
pillar,  the  holy  cone  of  Aphrodite  in  her  dimly 
lighted  cell  at  Paphos  —  had  passed  away.  The 
second  stage  in  the  development  of  Greek  religion 
had  come;  a  period  in  which  poet  and  artist  were 
busily  engaged  in  the  work  of  incorporating  all  that 
might  be  retained  of  the  vague  divinations  of  that 
earlier  visionary  time,  in  definite  and  intelligible 
human  image  and  human  story.  The  vague  belief, 
the  mysterious  custom  and  tradition,  develope  them- 
selves into  an  elaborately  ordered  ritual  —  into  per- 
sonal gods,  imaged  in  ivory  and  gold,  sitting  on 
beautiful  thrones.  Always,  wherever  a  shrine  or 
temple,  great  or  small,  is  mentioned,  there,  we  may 
conclude,  was  a  visible  idol,  there  was  conceived  to 
be  the  actual  dwelling-place  of  a  god.  And  this 
understanding  became  not  less  but  more  definite,  as 
the  temple  became  larger  and  more  splendid,  full  of 
ceremony  and  servants,  like  the  abode  of  an  earthly 
king,  and  as  the  sacred  presence  itself  assumed,  little 
by  little,  the  last  beauties  and  refinements  of  the  visi- 
ble human  form  and  expression. 


254          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK    SCULPTURE 

In  what  we  have  seen  of  this  first  period  of  Greek 
art,  in  all  its  curious  essays  and  inventions,  we  may 
observe  this  demand  for  beautiful  idols  increasing 
in  Greece  —  for  sacred  images,  at  first  still  rude,  and 
in  some  degree  the  holier  for  their  rudeness,  but 
which  yet  constitute  the  beginnings  of  the  religious 
style,  consummate  in  the  work  of  Pheidias,  uniting 
the  veritable  image  of  man  in  the  full  possession  of 
his  reasonable  soul,  with  the  true  religious  mysticity, 
the  signature  there  of  something  from  afar.  One  by 
one  these  new  gods  of  bronze,  or  marble,  or  flesh- 
like  ivory,  take  their  thrones,  at  this  or  that  famous 
shrine,  like  the  images  of  this  period  which  Pausanias 
saw  in  the  temple  of  Here  at  Olympia  —  the  throned 
Seasons,  with  Themis  as  the  mother  of  the  Seasons 
(divine  rectitude  being  still  blended,  in  men's  fan- 
cies, with  the  unchanging  physical  order  of  things) 
and  Fortune,  and  Victory  "having  wings,"  and  Kore 
and  Demeter  and  Dionysus,  already  visibly  there, 
around  the  image  of  Here  herself,  seated  on  a  throne ; 
and  all  chryselephantine,  all  in  gold  and  ivory. 
Novel  as  these  things  are,  they  still  undergo  consecra- 
tion at  their  first  erecting.  The  figure  of  Athene,  in 
her  brazen  temple  at  Sparta,  the  work  of  Gitiades, 
who  makes  also  the  image  and  the  hymn,  in  triple 
service  to  the  goddess;  and  again,  that  curious  story 


THE   AGE  OF   GRAVEN   IMAGES  255 

of  Dipoenus  and  Scyllis,  brought  back  with  so  much 
awe  to  remove  the  public  curse  by  completing  their 
sacred  task  upon  the  images,  show  how  simply  relig- 
ious the  age  still  was  —  that  this  wide-spread  artistic 
activity  was  a  religious  enthusiasm  also;  those  early 
sculptors  have  still,  for  their  contemporaries,  a  divine 
mission,  with  some  kind  of  hieratic  or  sacred  quality 
in  their  gift,  distinctly  felt. 

The  development  of  the  artist,  in  the  proper  sense, 
out  of  the  mere  craftsman,  effected  in  the  first  divis- 
ion of  this  period,  is  now  complete;  and,  in  close 
connexion  with  that  busy  graving  of  religious  images, 
which  occupies  its  second  division,  we  come  to  some- 
thing like  real  personalities,  to  men  with  individual 
characteristics  —  such  men  as  Ageladas  of  Argos, 
Gallon  and  Onatas  of  ^Egina,  and  Canachus  of  Sicyon. 
Mere  fragment  as  our  information  concerning  these 
early  masters  is  at  the  best,  it  is  at  least  unmistakea- 
bly  information  about  men  with  personal  differences 
of  temper  and  talent,  of  their  motives,  of  what  we 
call  style.  We  have  come  to  a  sort  of  art  which  is 
no  longer  broadly  characteristic  of  a  general  period, 
one  whose  products  we  might  have  looked  at  without 
its  occurring  to  us  to-  ask  concerning  the  artist,  his 
antecedents,  and  his  school.  We  have  to  do  now 
with  types  of  art,  fully  impressed  with  the  subjec- 
tivity, the  intimacies  of  the  artist. 


256         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

Among  these  freer  and  stronger  personalities 
emerging  thus  about  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury before  Christ  —  about  the  period  of  the  Persian 
war  —  the  name  to  which  most  of  this  sort  of  personal 
quality  attaches,  and  which  is  therefore  very  interest- 
ing, is  the  name  of  Canachus  of  Sicyon,  who  seems 
to  have  comprehended  in  himself  all  the  various 
attainments  in  art  which  had  been  gradually  developed 
in  the  schools  of  his  native  city  —  carver  in  wood, 
sculptor,  brass-cutter,  and  toreutes ;  by  toreutict  be- 
ing meant  the  whole  art  of  statuary  in  metals,  and  in 
their  combination  with  other  materials.  At  last  we 
seem  to  see  an  actual  person  at  work,  and  to  some 
degree  can  follow,  with  natural  curiosity,  the  motions 
of  his  spirit  and  his  hand.  We  seem  to  discern  in 
all  we  know  of  his  productions  the  results  of  indi- 
vidual apprehension  —  the  results,  as  well  as  the  limi- 
tations, of  an  individual  talent. 

It  is  impossible  to  date  exactly  the  chief  period  of 
the  activity  of  Canachus.  That  the  great  image  of 
Apollo,  which  he  made  for  the  Milesians,  was  carried 
away  to  Ecbatana  by  the  Persian  army,  is  stated  by 
Pausanias;  but  there  is  a  doubt  whether  this  was 
under  Xerxes,  as  Pausanias  says-,  in  the  year  479  B.C., 
or  twenty  years  earlier,  under  Darius.  So  important 
a  work  as  this  colossal  image  of  Apollo,  for  so  great 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  257 

a  shrine  as  the  Didymaum,  was  probably  the  task 
of  his  maturity;  and  his  career  may,  therefore,  be 
regarded  as  having  begun,  at  any  rate,  prior  to  the 
year  479  B.C.,  and  the  end  of  the  Persian  invasion 
the  event  which  may  be  said  to  close  this  period  of 
art.  On  the  whole,  the  chief  period  of  his  activity 
is  thought  to  have  fallen  earlier,  and  to  have  occu- 
pied the  last  forty  years  of  the  previous  century;  and 
he  would  thus  have  flourished,  as  we  say,  about  fifty 
years  before  the  manhood  of  Pheidias,  as  Mino  of 
Fiesole  fifty  years  before  the  manhood  of  Michel- 
angelo. 

His  chief  works  were  an  Aphrodite,  wrought  for 
the  Sicyonians  in  ivory  and  gold;  that  Apollo  of 
bronze  carried  away  by  the  Persians,  and  restored  to 
its  place  about  the  year  B.C.  350;  and  a  reproduc- 
tion of  the  same  work  in  cedar-wood,  for  the  sanctu- 
ary of  Apollo  of  the  Ismenus,  at  Thebes.  The  primi- 
tive Greek  worship,  as  we  may  trace  it  in  Homer, 
presents  already,  on  a  minor  scale,  all  the  essential 
characteristics  of  the  most  elaborate  Greek  worship 
of  after  times  —  the  sacred  enclosure,  the  incense 
and  other  offerings,  the  prayer  of  the  priest,  the  shrine 
itself  —  a  small  one,  roofed  in  by  the  priest  with 
green  boughs,  not  unlike  a  wayside  chapel  in  modern 
times,  and  understood  to  be  the  dwelling-place  of 


258         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK   SCULPTURE 

the  divine  person  —  within,  almost  certainly,  an  idol, 
with  its  own  sacred  apparel,  a  visible  form,  little 
more  than  symbolical  perhaps,  like  the  sacred  pillar 
for  which  Bathycles  made  his  throne  at  Amyclae,  but, 
if  an  actual  image,  certainly  a  rude  one. 

That  primitive  worship,  traceable  in  almost  all 
these  particulars,  even  in  the  first  book  of  the  Iliad, 
had  given  place,  before  the  time  of  Canachus  at 
Sicyon,  to  a  more  elaborate  ritual  and  a  more  com- 
pletely designed  image-work;  and  a  little  bronze 
statue,  discovered  on  the  site  of  Tenea,  where 
Apollo  was  the  chief  object  of  worship,1  the  best 
representative  of  many  similar  marble  figures  —  those 
of  Thera  and  Orchomenus,  for  instance  —  is  sup- 
posed to  represent  Apollo  as  this  still  early  age  con- 
ceived him  —  youthful,  naked,  muscular,  and  with 
the  germ  of  the  Greek  profile,  but  formally  smiling, 
and  with  a  formal  diadem  or  fillet,  over  the  long 
hair  which  shows  him  to  be  no  mortal  athlete.  The 
hands,  like  the  feet,  excellently  modelled,  are  here 
extended  downwards  at  the  sides;  but  in  some  simi- 
lar figures  the  hands  are  lifted,  and  held  straight 
outwards,  with  the  palms  upturned.  The  Apollo  of 
Canachus  also  had  the  hands  thus  raised,  and  on  the 
open  palm  of  the  right  hand  was  placed  a  stag,  while 

1  Now  preserved  at  Munich. 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES      259 

with  the  left  he  grasped  the  bow.  Pliny  says  that 
the  stag  was  an  automaton,  with  a  mechanical  device 
for  setting  it  in  motion,  a  detail  which  hints,  at  least, 
at  the  subtlety  of  workmanship  with  which  those 
ancient  critics,  who  had  opportunity  of  knowing, 
credited  this  early  artist.  Of  this  work  itself  noth- 
ing remains,  but  we  possess  perhaps  some  imitations 
of  it.  It  is  probably  this  most  sacred  possession  of 
the  place  which  the  coins  of  Miletus  display  from 
various  points  of  view,  though,  of  course,  only  on 
the  smallest  scale.  But  a  little  bronze  figure  in  the 
British  Museum,  with  the  stag  in  the  right  hand,  and 
in  the  closed  left  hand  the  hollow  where  the  bow  has 
passed,  is  thought  to  have  been  derived  from  it;  and 
its  points  of  style  are  still  further  illustrated  by  a 
marble  head  of  similar  character,  also  preserved  in 
the  British  Museum,  which  has  many  marks  of  having 
been  copied  in  marble  from  an  original  in  bronze. 
A  really  ancient  work,  or  only  archaic,  it  certainly 
expresses,  together  with  all  that  careful  patience  and 
hardness  of  workmanship  which  is  characteristic  of 
an  early  age,  a  certain  Apolline  strength  —  a  pride 
and  dignity  in  the  features,  so  steadily  composed, 
below  the  stiff,  archaic  arrangement  of  the  long, 
fillet-bound  locks.  It  is  the  exact  expression  of  that 
midway  position,  between  an  involved,  archaic  stiff- 


260         BEGINNINGS  OF  GREEK  SCULPTURE 

ness  and  the  free  play  of  individual  talent,  which  is 
attributed  to  Canachus  by  the  ancients. 

His  Apollo  of  cedar-wood,  which  inhabited  a  tem- 
ple near  the  gates  of  Thebes,  on  a  rising  ground, 
below  which  flowed  the  river  Ismenus,  had,  accord- 
ing to  Pausanias,  so  close  a  resemblance  to  that  at 
Miletus  that  it  required  little  skill  in  one  who  had 
seen  either  of  them  to  tell  what  master  had  designed 
the  other.  Still,  though  of  the  same  dimensions, 
while  one  was  of  cedar  the  other  was  of  bronze  —  a 
reproduction  one  of  the  other  we  may  believe,  but 
with  the  modifications,  according  to  the  use  of  good 
workmen  even  so  early  as  Canachus,  due  to  the  differ- 
ence of  the  material.  For  the  likeness  between  the 
two  statues,  it  is  to  be  observed,  is  not  the  mechani- 
cal likeness  of  those  earlier  images  represented  by 
the  statuette  of  Tenea,  which  spoke,  not  of  the  style 
of  one  master,  but  only  of  the  manufacture  of  one 
workshop.  In  those  two  images  of  Canachus  —  the 
Milesian  Apollo  and  the  Apollo  of  the  Ismenus  — 
there  were  resemblances  amid  differences;  resem- 
blances, as  we  may  understand,  in  what  was  neverthe- 
less peculiar,  novel,  and  even  innovating  in  the 
precise  conception  of  the  god  therein  set  forth;  re- 
semblances which  spoke  directly  of  a  single  workman, 
though  working  freely,  of  one  hand  and  one  fancy,  a 


THE  AGE   OF  GRAVEN   IMAGES  261 

likeness  in  that  which  could  by  no  means  be  truly 
copied  by  another;  it  was  the  beginning  of  what  we 
mean  by  the  style  of  a  master.  Together  with  all  the 
novelty,  the  innovating  and  improving  skill,  which 
has  made  Canachus  remembered,  an  attractive,  old- 
world,  deeply-felt  mysticity  seems  still  to  cling  about 
what  we  read  of  these  early  works.  That  piety,  that 
religiousness  of  temper,  of  which  the  people  of  Sicyon 
had  given  proof  so  oddly  in  their  dealings  with  those 
old  carvers,  Scyllis  and  Dipcenus,  still  survives  in 
the  master  who  was  chosen  to  embody  his  own  nov- 
elty of  idea  and  execution  in  so  sacred  a  place  as 
the  shrine  of  Apollo  at  Miletus.  Something  still 
conventional,  combined,  in  these  images,  with  the 
effect  of  great  artistic  skill,  with  a  palpable  beauty 
and  power,  seems  to  have  given  them  a  really  impos- 
ing religious  character.  Escaping  from  the  rigid 
uniformities  of  the  stricter  archaic  style,  he  is  still 
obedient  to  certain  hieratic  influences  and  tradi- 
tions; he  is  still  reserved,  self-controlled,  composed 
or  even  mannered  a  little,  as  in  some  sacred  presence, 
with  the  severity  and  strength  of  the  early  style. 

But  there  are  certain  notices  which  seem  to  show 
that  he  had  his  purely  poetical  motives  also,  as  be- 
fitted his  age;  motives  which  prompted  works  of 
mere  fancy,  like  his  Muse  -with  the  Lyre,  symbolis- 


262          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

ing  the  chromatic  style  of  music  ;  Aristocles  his 
brother,  and  Ageladas  of  Argos  executing  each  an- 
other statue  to  symbolise  the  two  other  orders  of 
music.  The  Riding  Boys,  of  which  Pliny  speaks, 
like  the  mechanical  stag  on  the  hand  of  Apollo, 
which  he  also  describes,  were  perhaps  mechanical 
toys,  as  Benvenuto  Cellini  made  toys.  In  the  Beard- 
less sEsculapius,  again  —  the  image  of  the  god  of 
healing,  not  merely  as  the  son  of  Apollo,  but  as 
one  ever  young  —  it  is  the  Poetry  of  sculpture  that 
we  see. 

This  poetic  feeling,  and  the  piety  of  temper  so 
deeply  impressed  upon  his  images  of  Apollo,  seem 
to  have  been  combined  in  his  chryselephantine 
Aphrodite,  as  we  see  it  very  distinctly  in  Pausanias, 
enthroned  with  an  apple  in  one  hand  and  a  poppy  in 
the  other,  and  with  the  sphere,  or  polos,  about  the 
head,  in  its  quaint  little  temple  or  chapel  at  Sicyon, 
with  the  hierokepis,  or  holy  garden,  about  it.  This  is 
what  Canachus  has  to  give  us  instead  of  the  strange, 
symbolical  cone,  with  the  lights  burning  around  it, 
in  its  dark  cell  —  the  form  under  which  Aphrodite 
was  worshipped  at  her  famous  shrine  of  Paphos. 

"A  woman  to  keep  it  fair,"  Pausanias  tells  us, 
"who  may  go  in  to  no  man,  and  a  virgin  called  the 
water-bearer,  who  holds  her  priesthood  for  a  year, 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  263 

are  alone  permitted  to  enter  the  sacred  place.  All 
others  may  gaze  upon  the  goddess  and  offer  their 
prayers  from  the  doorway.  The  seated  image  is  the 
work  of  Canachus  of  Sicyon.  It  is  wrought  in  ivory 
and  gold,  bearing  a  sphere  on  the  head,  and  having 
in  the  one  hand  a  poppy  and  in  the  other  an  apple. 
They  offer  to  her  the  thighs  of  all  victims  excepting 
swine,  burning  them  upon  sticks  of  juniper,  together 
with  leaves  of  lad's-love,  a  herb  found  in  the  enclos- 
ure without,  and  nowhere  else  in  the  world.  Its 
leaves  are  smaller  than  those  of  the  beech  and  larger 
than  the  ilex;  in  form  they  are  like  an  oak-leaf,  and 
in  colour  resemble  most  the  leaves  of  the  poplar,  one 
side  dusky,  the  other  white." 

That  is  a  place  one  would  certainly  have  liked  to 
see.  So  real  it  seems !  —  the  seated  image,  the  peo- 
ple gazing  through  the  doorway,  the  fragrant  odour. 
Must  it  not  still  be  in  secret  keeping  somewhere  ?  — 
we  are  almost  tempted  to  ask;  maintained  by  some 
few  solitary  worshippers,  surviving  from  age  to  age, 
among  the  villagers  of  Achaia. 

In  spite  of  many  obscurities,  it  may  be  said  that 
what  we  know,  and  what  we  do  not  know,  of  Cana- 
chus illustrates  the  amount  and  sort  of  knowledge  we 
possess  about  the  artists  of  the  period  which  he  best 
represents.  A  naivete  —  a  freshness,  an  early-aged 


264          BEGINNINGS   OF   GREEK   SCULPTURE 

simplicity  and  sincerity  —  that,  we  may  believe,  had 
we  their  works  before  us,  would  be  for  us  their  chief 
aesthetic  charm.  Cicero  remarked  that,  in  contrast 
with  the  works  of  the  next  generation  of  sculptors, 
there  was  a  stiffness  in  the  statues  of  Canachus  which 
made  them  seem  untrue  to  nature  —  "  Canachi  signa 
rigidiora  esse  quam  ut  imitentur  veritatem."  But 
Cicero  belongs  to  an  age  surfeited  with  artistic  li- 
cence, and  likely  enough  to  undervalue  the  severity 
of  the  early  masters,  the  great  motive  struggling  still 
with  the  minute  and  rigid  hand.  So  the  critics  of 
the  last  century  ignored,  or  underrated,  the  works  of 
the  earlier  Tuscan  sculptors.  In  what  Cicero  calls 
"rigidity"  of  Canachus,  combined  with  what  we 
seem  to  see  of  his  poetry  of  conception,  his  fresh- 
ness, his  solemnity,  we  may  understand  no  really 
repellent  hardness,  but  only  that  earnest  patience  of 
labour,  the  expression  of  which  is  constant  in  all  the 
best  work  of  an  early  time,  in  the  David  of  Ver- 
rocchio,  for  instance,  and  in  the  early  Flemish  paint- 
ers, as  it  is  natural  and  becoming  in  youth  itself. 
The  very  touch  of  the  struggling  hand  was  upon  the 
work;  but  with  the  interest,  the  half -repressed  ani- 
mation of  a  great  promise,  fulfilled,  as  we  now  see, 
in  the  magnificent  growth  of  Greek  sculpture  in  the 
succeeding  age;  which,  however,  for  those  earlier 


THE  AGE  OF  GRAVEN  IMAGES  265 

workmen,  meant  the  loins  girt  and  the  half-folded 
wings  not  yet  quite  at  home  in  the  air,  with  a  gravity, 
a  discretion  and  reserve,  the  charm  of  which,  if  felt 
in  quiet,  is  hardly  less  than  that  of  the  wealth  and 
fulness  of  final  mastery. 


THE    MARBLES    OF 


I  HAVE  dwelt  the  more  emphatically  upon  the 
purely  sensuous  aspects  of  early  Greek  art,  on  the 
beauty  and  charm  of  its  mere  material  and  workman- 
ship, the  grace  of  hand  in  it,  its  chryselephantine  char- 
acter, because  the  direction  of  all  the  more  general 
criticism  since  Lessing  has  been,  somewhat  one- 
sidedly,  towards  the  ideal  or  abstract  element  in 
Greek  art,  towards  what  we  may  call  its  philosophi- 
cal aspect.  And,  indeed,  this  philosophical  element, 
a  tendency  to  the  realisation  of  a  certain  inward, 
abstract,  intellectual  ideal,  is  also  at  work  in  Greek 
art  —  a  tendency  which,  if  that  chryselephantine  in- 
fluence is  called  Ionian,  may  rightly  be  called  the 
Dorian,  or,  in  reference  to  its  broader  scope,  the 
European  influence;  and  this  European  influence  or 
tendency  is  really  towards  the  impression  of  an  order, 
a  sanity,  a  proportion  in  all  work,  which  shall  reflect 
the  inward  order  of  human  reason,  now  fully  con- 
266 


THE   MARBLES   OF   ^GINA  267 

scious  of  itself,  —  towards  a  sort  of  art  in  which  the 
record  and  delineation  of  humanity,  as  active  in  the 
wide,  inward  world  of  its  passion  and  thought,  has 
become  more  or  less  definitely  the  aim  of  all  artistic 
handicraft. 

In  undergoing  the  action  of  these  two  opposing 
influences,  and  by  harmonising  in  itself  their  antag- 
onism, Greek  sculpture  does  but  reflect  the  larger 
movements  of  more  general  Greek  history.  All 
through  Greek  history  we  may  trace,  in  every  sphere 
of  the  activity  of  the  Greek  mind,  the  action  of  these 
two  opposing  tendencies,  —  the  centrifugal  and  cen- 
tripetal tendencies,  as  we  may  perhaps  not  too  fanci- 
fully call  them.  There  is  the  centrifugal,  the  Ionian, 
the  Asiatic  tendency,  flying  from  the  centre,  working 
with  little  forethought  straight  before  it,  in  the  devel- 
opment of  every  thought  and  fancy;  throwing  itself 
forth  in  endless  play  of  undirected  imagination;  de- 
lighting in  brightness  and  colour,  in  beautiful  mate- 
rial, in  changeful  form  everywhere,  in  poetry,  in 
philosophy,  even  in  architecture  and  its  subordinate 
crafts.  In  the  social  and  political  order  it  rejoices 
in  the  freest  action  of  local  and  personal  influences; 
its  restless  versatility  drives  it  towards  the  assertion 
of  the  principles  of  separatism,  of  individualism,  — 
the  separation  of  state  from  state,  the  maintenance 


268  THE   MARBLES   OF   y£GINA 

of  local  religions,  the  development  of  the  individual 
in  that  which  is  most  peculiar  and  individual  in 
him.  Its  claim  is  in  its  grace,  its  freedom  and  hap- 
piness, its  lively  interest,  the  variety  of  its  gifts  to 
civilisation;  its  weakness  is  self-evident,  and  was 
what  made  the  unity  of  Greece  impossible.  It  is 
this  centrifugal  tendency  which  Plato  is  desirous  to 
cure,  by  maintaining,  over  against  it,  the  Dorian 
influence  of  a  severe  simplification  everywhere,  in 
society,  in  culture,  in  the  very  physical  nature  of 
man.  An  enemy  everywhere  to  Variegation,  to  what 
is  cunning  or  "myriad-minded,"  he  sets  himself, 
in  mythology,  in  music,  in  poetry,  in  every  kind  of 
art,  to  enforce  the  ideal  of  a  sort  of  Parmenidean 
abstractness  and  calm. 

This  exaggerated  ideal  of  Plato's  is,  however,  only 
the  exaggeration  of  that  salutary  European  tendency, 
which,  finding  human  mind  the  most  absolutely  real 
and  precious  thing  in  the  world,  enforces  everywhere 
the  impress  of  its  sanity,  its  profound  reflexions  upon 
things  as  they  really  are,  its  sense  of  proportion.  It 
is  the  centripetal  tendency,  which  links  individuals 
to  each  other,  states  to  states,  one  period  of  organic 
growth  to  another,  under  the  reign  of  a  composed, 
rational,  self-conscious  order,  in  the  universal  light 
of  the  understanding. 


THE   MARBLES   OF  ^EGINA  269 

Whether  or  not  this  temper,  so  clearly  traceable  as 
a  distinct  influence  in  the  course  of  Greek  develop- 
ment, was  indeed  the  peculiar  gift  of  the  Dorian 
race,  certainly  that  race  is  the  best  illustration  of  it, 
in  its  love  of  order,  of  that  severe  composition  every- 
where, of  which  the  Dorian  style  of  architecture  is, 
as  it  were,  a  material  symbol  —  in  its  constant  aspi- 
ration after  what  is  earnest  and  dignified,  as  exempli- 
fied most  evidently  in  the  religion  of  its  predilection, 
the  religion  of  Apollo. 

For  as  that  Ionian  influence,  the  chryselephantine 
influence,  had  its  patron  in  Hephaestus,  belonged  to 
the  religion  of  Hephaestus,  husband  of  Aphrodite,  the 
representation  of  exquisite  workmanship,  of  fine  art 
in  metal,  coming  from  the  East  in  close  connexion 
with  the  artificial  furtherance,  through  dress  and 
personal  ornament,  of  the  beauty  of  the  body;  so 
that  Dorian  or  European  influence  embodied  itself 
in  the  religion  of  Apollo.  For  the  development  of 
this  or  that  mythological  conception,  from  its  root 
in  fact  or  law  of  the  physical  world,  is  very  various 
in  its  course.  Thus,  Demeter,  the  spirit  of  life  in 
grass, — and  Dionysus,  the  "spiritual  form  "  of  life  in 
the  green  sap, —  remain,  to  the  end  of  men's  thoughts 
and  fancies  about  them,  almost  wholly  physical. 
But  Apollo,  the  "  spiritual  form  "  of  sunbeams,  early 


270  THE   MARBLES   OF  yEGINA 

becomes  (the  merely  physical  element  in  his  consti- 
tution being  almost  wholly  suppressed)  exclusively 
ethical,  —  the  "  spiritual  form  "  of  inward  or  intellect- 
ual light,  in  all  its  manifestations.  He  represents  all 
those  specially  European  ideas,  of  a  reasonable,  per- 
sonal freedom,  as  understood  in  Greece;  of  a  rea- 
sonable polity;  of  the  sanity  of  soul  and  body,  through 
the  cure  of  disease  and  of  the  sense  of  sin;  of  the 
perfecting  of  both  by  reasonable  exercise  or  ascesis  ; 
his  religion  is  a  sort  of  embodied  equity,  its  aim  the 
realisation  of  fair  reason  and  just  consideration  of 
the  truth  of  things  everywhere. 

I  cannot  dwell  on  the  general  aspects  of  this  sub- 
ject further,  but  I  would  remark  that  in  art  also  the 
religion  of  Apollo  was  a  sanction  of,  and  an  encour- 
agement towards  the  true  valuation  of  humanity,  in 
its  sanity,  its  proportion,  its  knowledge  of  itself. 
Following  after  this,  Greek  art  attained,  in  its  repro- 
ductions of  human  form,  not  merely  to  the  profound 
expression  of  the  highest  indwelling  spirit  of  human 
intelligence,  but  to  the  expression  also  of  the  great 
human  passions,  of  the  powerful  movements  as  well 
as  of  the  calm  and  peaceful  order  of  the  soul,  as  find- 
ing in  the  affections  of  the  body  a  language,  the 
elements  of  which  the  artist  might  analyse,  and  then 
combine,  order,  and  recompose.  In  relation  to 


THE   MARBLES   OF  ^GINA  271 

music,  to  art,  to  all  those  matters  over  which  the 
Muses  preside,  Apollo,  as  distinct  from  Hermes, 
seems  to  be  the  representative  and  patron  of  what  I 
may  call  reasonable  music,  of  a  great  intelligence  at 
work  in  art,  of  beauty  attained  through  the  conscious 
realisation  of  ideas.  They  were  the  cities  of  the 
Dorian  affinity  which  early  brought  to  perfection  that 
most  characteristic  of  Greek  institutions,  the  sacred 
dance,  with  the  whole  gymnastic  system  which  was 
its  natural  accompaniment.  And  it  was  the  familiar 
spectacle  of  that  living  sculpture  which  developed, 
perhaps,  beyond  everything  else  in  the  Greek  mind, 
at  its  best,  a  sense  of  the  beauty  and  significance  of 
the  human  form. 

Into  that  bewildered,  dazzling  world  of  minute  and 
dainty  handicraft  —  the  chamber  of  Paris,  the  house 
of  Alcinous  —  in  which  the  form  of  man  alone  had 
no  adequate  place,  and  as  yet,  properly,  was  not,  this 
Dorian,  European,  Apolline  influence  introduced  the 
intelligent  and  spiritual  human  presence,  and  gave 
it  its  true  value,  a  value  consistently  maintained  to 
the  end  of  Greek  art,  by  a  steady  hold  upon  and  pre- 
occupation with  the  inward  harmony  and  system  of 
human  personality. 

In.  the  works  of  the  Asiatic  tradition  —  the  marbles 
of  Nineveh,  for  instance  —  and,  so  far  as  we  can  see, 


272  THE  MARBLES  OF 


in  the  early  Greek  art,  which  derives  from  it,  as,  for 
example,  in  the  archaic  remains  from  Cyprus,  the 
form  of  man  is  inadequate,  and  below  the  measure 
of  perfection  attained  there  in  the  representation  of 
the  lower  forms  of  life;  just  as  in  the  little  reflective 
art  of  Japan,  so  lovely  in  its  reproduction  of  flower 
or  bird,  the  human  form  alone  comes  almost  as  a 
caricature,  or  is  at  least  untouched  by  any  higher 
ideal.  To  that  Asiatic  tradition,  then,  with  its  per- 
fect craftsmanship,  its  consummate  skill  in  design, 
its  power  of  hand,  the  Dorian,  the  European,  the 
true  Hellenic  influence  brought  a  revelation  of  the 
soul  and  body  of  man. 

And  we  come  at  last  in  the  marbles  of  ALgina.  to 
a  monument,  which  bears  upon  it  the  full  expres- 
sion of  this  humanism,  —  to  a  work,  in  which  the 
presence  of  man,  realised  with  complete  mastery 
of  hand,  and  with  clear  apprehension  of  how  he 
actually  is  and  moves  and  looks,  is  touched  with  the 
freshest  sense  of  that  new-found,  inward  value;  the 
energy  of  worthy  passions  purifying,  the  light  of  his 
reason  shining  through,  bodily  forms  and  motions, 
solemnised,  attractive,  pathetic.  We  have  reached 
an  extant  work,  real  and  visible,  of  an  importance 
out  of  all  proportion  to  anything  actually  remaining 
of  earlier  art,  and  justifying,  by  its  direct  interest  and 


THE  MARBLES  OF  ^GINA  273 

charm,  our  long  prelude  on  the  beginnings  of  Greek 
sculpture,  while  there  was  still  almost  nothing  actu- 
ally to  see. 

These  fifteen  figures  of  Parian  marble,  of  about 
two-thirds  the  size  of  life,  forming,  with  some  defi- 
ciencies, the  east  and  west  gables  of  a  temple  of 
Athene,  the  ruins  of  which  still  stand  on  a  hill-side 
by  the  sea-shore,  in  a  remote  part  of  the  island  of 
^Egina,  were  discovered  in  the  year  1811,  and  hav- 
ing been  purchased  by  the  Crown  Prince,  afterwards 
King  Louis  I.,  of  Bavaria,  are  now  the  great  orna- 
ment of  the  Glyptothek,  or  Museum  of  Sculpture,  at 
Munich.  The  group  in  each  gable  consisted  of 
eleven  figures;  and  of  the  fifteen  larger  figures  dis- 
covered, five  belong  to  the  eastern,  ten  to  the  western 
gable,  so  that  the  western  gable  is  complete  with  the 
exception  of  one  figure,  which  should  stand  in  the 
place  to  which,  as  the  groups  are  arranged  at  Munich, 
the  beautiful  figure,  bending  down  towards  the  fallen 
leader,  has  been  actually  transferred  from  the  eastern 
gable;  certain  fragments  showing  that  the  lost  figure 
corresponded  essentially  to  this,  which  has  therefore 
been  removed  hither  from  its  place  in  the  less  com- 
plete group  to  which  it  properly  belongs.  For  there 
are  two  legitimate  views  or  motives  in  the  restora- 
tion of  ancient  sculpture,  the  antiquarian  and  the 
T 


274  THE  MARBLES  OF 

aesthetic,  as  they  may  be  termed,  respectively;  the 
former  limiting  itself  to  the  bare  presentation  of  what 
actually  remains  of  the  ancient  work,  braving  all 
shock  to  living  eyes  from  the  mutilated  nose  or  chin; 
while  the  latter,  the  aesthetic  method,  requires  that, 
with  the  least  possible  addition  or  interference,  by 
the  most  skilful  living  hand  procurable,  the  object 
shall  be  made  to  please,  or  at  least  content  the  living 
eye,  seeking  efljoyment  and  not  a  bare  fact  of  science, 
in  the  spectacle  of  ancient  art.  This  latter  way  of 
restoration,  —  the  aesthetic  way,  —  followed  by  the 
famous  connoisseurs  of  the  Renaissance,  has  been 
followed  here;  and  the  visitor  to  Munich  actually  sees 
the  marbles  of  ^Egina,  as  restored  after  a  model  by 
the  tasteful  hand  of  Thorwaldsen. 

Different  views  have,  however,  been  maintained  as 
to  the  right  grouping  of  the  figures;  but  the  compo- 
sition of  the  two  groups  was  apparently  similar,  not 
only  in  general  character  but  in  a  certain  degree  of 
correspondence  of  all  the  figures,  each  to  each.  And 
in  both  the  subject  is  a  combat,  —  a  combat  between 
Greeks  and  Asiatics  concerning  the  body  of  a  Greek 
hero,  fallen  among  the  foemen,  —  an  incident  so 
characteristic  of  the  poetry  of  the  heroic  wars.  In 
both  cases,  Athene,  whose  temple  this  sculpture  was 
designed  to  decorate,  intervenes,  her  image  being 


THE  MARBLES  OF  ^GINA  275 

complete  in  the  western  gable,  the  head  and  some 
other  fragments  remaining  of  that  in  the  eastern. 
The  incidents  represented  were  probably  chosen  with 
reference  to  the  traditions  of  ^Egina  in  connexion 
with  the  Trojan  war.  Greek  legend  is  ever  deeply 
coloured  by  local  interest  and  sentiment,  and  this 
monument  probably  celebrates  Telamon,  and  Ajax 
his  son,  the  heroes  who  established  the  fame  of 
y£gina,  and  whom  the  united  Greeks,  on  the  morn- 
ing of  the  battle  of  Salamis,  in  which  the  ^Eginetans 
were  distinguished  above  all  other  Greeks  in  bravery, 
invited  as  their  "peculiar,  spiritual  allies  from  that 
island. 

Accordingly,  antiquarians  are,  for  the  most  part, 
of  opinion  that  the  eastern  gable  represents  the  com- 
bat of  Hercules  (Hercules  being  the  only  figure  among 
the  warriors  certainly  to  be  identified),  and  of  his 
comrade  Telamon,  against  Laomedon  of  Troy,  in 
which,  properly,  Hercules  was  leader,  but  here,  as 
squire  and  archer,  is  made  to  give  the  first  place  to 
Telamon,  as  the  titular  hero  of  the  place.  Opinion 
is  not  so  definite  regarding  the  subject  of  the  western 
gable,  which,  however,  probably  represents  the  com- 
bat between  the  Greeks  and  Trojans  over  the  body  of 
Patroclus.  In  both  cases  an  yEginetan  hero,  in  the 
eastern  gable  Telamon,  in  the  western  his  son  Ajax, 


276  THE   MARBLES   OF 


is  represented  in  the  extreme  crisis  of  battle,  such  a 
crisis  as,  according  to  the  deep  religiousness  of  the 
Greeks  of  that  age,  was  a  motive  for  the  visible  inter- 
vention of  the  goddess  in  favour  of  her  chosen 
people. 

Opinion  as  to  the  date  of  the  work,  based  mainly 
on  the  characteristics  of  the  work  itself,  has  varied 
within  a  period  ranging  from  the  middle  of  the  six- 
tieth to  the  middle  of  the  seventieth  Olympiad,  in- 
clining on  the  whole  to  the  later  date,  in  the  period 
of  the  Ionian  revolt  against  Persia,  and  a  few  years 
earlier  than  the  battle  of  Marathon. 

In  this  monument,  then,  we  have  a  revelation  in 
the  sphere  of  art,  of  the  temper  which  made  the 
victories  of  Marathon  and  Salamis  possible,  of  the 
true  spirit  of  Greek  chivalry  as  displayed  in  the  Per- 
sian war,  and  in  the  highly  ideal  conception  of  its 
events,  expressed  in  Herodotus  and  approving  itself 
minutely  to  the  minds  of  the  Greeks,  as  a  series  of 
affairs  in  which  the  gods  and  heroes  of  old  time 
personally  intervened,  and  that  not  as  mere  shadows. 
It  was  natural  that  the  high-pitched  temper,  the  stress 
of  thought  and  feeling,  which  ended  in  the  final  con- 
flict of  Greek  liberty  with  Asiatic  barbarism,  should 
stimulate  quite  a  new  interest  in  the  poetic  legends 
of  the  earlier  conflict  between  them  in  the  heroic 


THE  MARBLES  OF  yEGINA  277 

age.  As  the  events  of  the  Crusades  and  the  chival- 
rous spirit  of  that  period,  leading  men's  minds  back 
to  ponder  over  the  deeds  of  Charlemagne  and  his 
paladins,  gave  birth  to  the  composition  of  the  Song 
of  Roland,  just  so  this  yEginetan  sculpture  displays 
the  Greeks  of  a  later  age  feeding  their  enthusiasm 
on  the  legend  of  a  distant  past,  and  is  a  link  between 
Herodotus  and  Homer.  In  those  ideal  figures,  pen- 
sive a  little  from  the  first,  we  may  suppose,  with  the 
shadowiness  of  a  past  age,  we  may  yet  see  how  Greeks 
of  the  time  of  Themistocles  really  conceived  of 
Homeric  knight  and  squire. 

Some  other  fragments  of  art,  also  discovered  in 
^Egina,  and  supposed  to  be  contemporary  with  the 
temple  of  Athene,  tend,  by  their  roughness  and  im- 
maturity, to  show  that  this  small  building,  so  united 
in  its  effect,  so  complete  in  its  simplicity,  in  the 
symmetry  of  its  two  main  groups  of  sculpture,  was 
the  perfect  artistic  flower  of  its  time  and  place.  Yet 
within  the  limits  of  this  simple  unity,  so  important 
an  element  in  the  charm  and  impressiveness  of  the 
place,  a  certain  inequality  of  design  and  execution 
may  be  detected;  the  hand  of  a  slightly  earlier 
master,  probably,  having  worked  in  the  western 
gable,  while  the  master  of  the  eastern  gable  has  gone 
some  steps  farther  than  he  in  fineness  and  power  of 


278  THE   MARBLES   OF 

expression;  the  stooping  figure  of  the  supposed 
Ajax, —  belonging  to  the  western  group  in  the  present 
arrangement,  but  really  borrowed,  as  I  said,  from  the 
eastern,  —  which  has  in  it  something  above  the  type 
of  the  figures  grouped  round  it,  being  this  later  sculp- 
tor's work.  Yet  Overbeck,  who  has  elaborated  the 
points  of  this  distinction  of  styles,  commends  with- 
out reserve  the  technical  excellence  of  the  whole 
work,  executed,  as  he  says,  "  with  an  application  of 
all  known  instruments  of  sculpture;  the  delicate  cal- 
culation of  weight  in  the  composition  of  the  several 
parts,  allowing  the  artist  to  dispense  with  all  artificial 
supports,  and  to  set  his  figures,  with  all  their  complex 
motions,  and  yet  with  plinths  only  three  inches  thick, 
into  the  basis  of  the  gable;  the  bold  use  of  the  chisel, 
which  wrought  the  shield,  on  the  freely-held  arm, 
down  to  a  thickness  of  scarcely  three  inches;  the 
fineness  of  the  execution,  even  in  parts  of  the  work 
invisible  to  an  ordinary  spectator,  in  the  diligent 
finishing  of  which  the  only  motive  of  the  artist  was 
to  satisfy  his  own  conviction  as  to  the  nature  of 
good  sculpture." 

It  was  the  Dorian  cities,  Plato  tells  us,  which  first 
shook  off  the  false  Asiatic  shame,  and  stripped  off 
their  clothing  for  purposes  of  exercise  and  training 
in  the  gymnasium  ;  and  it  was  part  of  the  Dorian  or 


THE  MARBLES   OF  ^GINA  279 

European  influence  to  assert  the  value  in  art  of  the 
unveiled  and  healthy  human  form.  And  here  the 
artists  of  ^£gina,  notwithstanding  Homer's  descrip- 
tion of  Greek  armour,  glowing  like  the  sun  itself,  have 
displayed  the  Greek  warriors  —  Greek  and  Trojan 
alike  —  not  in  the  equipments  they  would  really 
have  worn,  but  naked, —  flesh  fairer  than  that  golden 
armour,  though  more  subdued  and  tranquil  in  effect 
on  the  spectator,  the  undraped  form  of  man  coming 
like  an  embodiment  of  the  Hellenic  spirit,  and  as 
an  element  of  temperance,  into  the  somewhat  gaudy 
spectacle  of  Asiatic,  or  archaic  art.  Paris  alone 
bears  his  dainty  trappings,  characteristically, —  a 
coat  of  golden  scale-work,  the  scales  set  on  a  lining 
of  canvas  or  leather,  shifting  deftly  over  the  delicate 
body  beneath,  and  represented  on  the  gable  by  the 
gilding,  or  perhaps  by  real  gilt  metal. 

It  was  characteristic  also  of  that  more  truly  Hel- 
lenic art  —  another  element  of  its  temperance  —  to 
adopt  the  use  of  marble  in  its  works;  and  the  ma- 
terial of  these  figures  is  the  white  marble  of  Paros. 
Traces  of  colour  have,  however,  been  found  on  cer- 
tain parts  of  them.  The  outer  surfaces  of  the  shields 
and  helmets  have  been  blue;  their  inner  parts  and 
the  crests  of  the  helmets,  red;  the  hem  of  the  drapery 
of  Athene,  the  edges  of  her  sandals,  the  plinths  on 


280  THE   MARBLES   OF 

which  the  figures  stand,  also  red;  one  quiver  red, 
another  blue;  the  eyes  and  lips,  too,  coloured;  per- 
haps, the  hair.  There  was  just  a  limited  and  conven- 
tionalised use  of  colour,  in  effect,  upon  the  marble. 

And  although  the  actual  material  of  these  figures 
is  marble,  its  coolness  and  massiveness  suiting  the 
growing  severity  of  Greek  thought,  yet  they  have  their 
reminiscences  of  work  in  bronze,  in  a  certain  slim- 
ness  and  tenuity,  a  certain  dainty  lightness  of  poise 
in  their  grouping,  which  remains  in  the  memory  as  a 
peculiar  note  of  their  style;  the  possibility  of  such 
easy  and  graceful  balancing  being  one  of  the  privi- 
leges or  opportunities  of  statuary  in  cast  metal,  of 
that  hollow  casting  in  which  the  whole  weight  of  the 
work  is  so  much  less  than  that  of  a  work  of  equal 
size  in  marble,  and  which  permits  so  much  wider  and 
freer  a  disposition  of  the  parts  about  its  centre  of 
gravity.  In  ^Egina  the  tradition  of  metal  work  seems 
to  have  been  strong,  and  Onatas,  whose  name  is 
closely  connected  with  ^Egina,  and  who  is  contem- 
porary with  the  presumably  later  portion  of  this  mon- 
ument, was  above  all  a  worker  in  bronze.  Here 
again,  in  this  lurking  spirit  of  metal  work,  we  have 
a  new  element  of  complexity  in  the  character  of  these 
precious  remains.  And  then,  to  compass  the  whole 
work  in  our  imagination,  we  must  conceive  yet  an- 


THE   MARBLES  OF   ^EGINA  281 

other  element  in  the  conjoint  effect ;  metal  being 
actually  mingled  with  the  marble,  brought  thus  to  its 
daintiest  point  of  refinement,  as  the  little  holes  indi- 
cate, bored  into  the  marble  figures  for  the  attachment 
of  certain  accessories  in  bronze, —  lances,  swords, 
bows,  the  Medusa1  s  head  on  the  eegis  of  Athene,  and 
its  fringe  of  little  snakes. 

And  as  there  was  no  adequate  consciousness  and 
recognition  of  the  essentials  of  man's  nature  in  the 
older,  oriental  art,  so  there  is  no  pathos,  no  human- 
ity in  the  more  special  sense,  but  a  kind  of  hardness 
and  cruelty  rather,  in  those  oft-repeated,  long,  matter- 
of-fact  processions,  on  the  marbles  of  Nineveh,  of 
slave-like  soldiers  on  their  way  to  battle  mechani- 
cally, or  of  captives  on  their  way  to  slavery  or  death, 
for  the  satisfaction  of  the  Great  King.  These  Greek 
marbles,  on  the  contrary,  with  that  figure  yearning 
forward  so  graciously  to  the  fallen  leader,  are  deeply 
impressed  with  a  natural  pathetic  effect  —  the  true 
reflexion  again  of  the  temper  of  Homer  in  speaking 
of  war.  Ares,  the  god  of  war  himself,  we  must  re- 
member, is,  according  to  his  original  import,  the  god 
of  storms,  of  winter  raging  among  the  forests  of  the 
Thracian  mountains,  a  brother  of  the  north  wind. 
It  is  only  afterwards  that,  surviving  many  minor  gods 
of  war,  he  becomes  a  leader  of  hosts,  a  sort  of  divine 


282  THE   MARBLES   OF 

knight  and  patron  of  knighthood;  and,  through  the 
old  intricate  connexion  of  love  and  war,  and  that 
amorousness  which  is  the  universally  conceded  privi- 
lege of  the  soldier's  life,  he  comes  to  be  very  near 
Aphrodite,  —  the  paramour  of  the  goddess  of  physical 
beauty.  So  that  the  idea  of  a  sort  of  soft  dalliance 
mingles,  in  his  character,  so  unlike  that  of  the  Chris- 
tian leader,  Saint  George,  with  the  idea  of  savage, 
warlike  impulses  ;  the  fair,  soft  creature  suddenly 
raging  like  a  storm,  to  which,  in  its  various  wild 
incidents,  war  is  constantly  likened  in  Homer;  the 
effects  of  delicate  youth  and  of  tempest  blending,  in 
Ares,  into  one  expression,  not  without  that  cruelty 
which  mingles  also,  like  the  influence  of  some  malign 
fate  upon  him,  with  the  finer  characteristics  of 
Achilles,  who  is  a  kind  of  merely  human  double  of 
Ares.  And  in  Homer's  impressions  of  war  the  same 
elements  are  blent, —  the  delicacy,  the  beauty  of 
youth,  especially,  which  makes  it  so  fit  for  purposes 
of  love,  spoiled  and  wasted  by  the  random  flood  and 
fire  of  a  violent  tempest;  the  glittering  beauty  of  the 
Greek  "war-men,"  expressed  in  so  many  brilliant 
figures,  and  the  splendour  of  their  equipments,  in 
collision  with  the  miserable  accidents  of  battle,  and 
the  grotesque  indignities  of  death  in  it,  brought  home 
to  our  fancy  by  a  hundred  pathetic  incidents,  —  the 


THE  MARBLES  OF  ^EGINA  283 

sword  hot  with  slaughter,  the  stifling  blood  in  the 
throat,  the  spoiling  of  the  body  in  every  member 
severally.  He  thinks  of,  and  records,  at  his  early 
ending,  the  distant  home  from  which  the  boy  came, 
who  goes  stumbling  now,  just  stricken  so  wretchedly, 
his  bowels  in  his  hands.  He  pushes  the  expression 
of  this  contrast  to  the  macabre  even,  suggesting  the 
approach  of  those  lower  forms  of  life  which  await 
to-morrow  the  fair  bodies  of  the  heroes,  who  strive  and 
fall  to-day  like  these  in  the  ^Eginetan  gables.  For 
it  is  just  that  twofold  sentiment  which  this  sculpture 
has  embodied.  The  seemingly  stronger  hand  which 
wrought  the  eastern  gable  has  shown  itself  strongest 
in  the  rigid  expression  of  the  truth  of  pain,  in  the 
mouth  of  the  famous  recumbent  figure  on  the  extreme 
left,  the  lips  just  open  at  the  corner,  and  in  the  hard- 
shut  lips  of  Hercules.  Otherwise,  these  figures  all 
smile  faintly,  almost  like  the  monumental  effigies  oi 
the  Middle  Age,  with  a  smile  which,  even  if  it  be 
but  a  result  of  the  mere  conventionality  of  an  art  still 
somewhat  immature,  has  just  the  pathetic  effect  of 
Homer's  conventional  epithet  "tender,"  when  he 
speaks  of  the  flesh  of  his  heroes. 

And  together  with  this  touching  power  there  is  also 
in  this  work  the  effect  of  an  early  simplicity,  the 
charm  of  its  limitations.  For  as  art  which  has  passed 


284  THE   MARBLES  OF 

its  prime  has  sometimes  the  charm  of  an  absolute 
refinement  in  taste  and  workmanship,  so  immature 
art  also,  as  we  now  see,  has  its  own  attractiveness  in 
the    naivete,    the    freshness    of    spirit,    which   finds 
power  and  interest  in  simple  motives  of  feeling,  and 
in  the  freshness  of  hand,  which  has  a  sense  of  enjoy- 
ment in  mechanical  processes  still  performed  unme- 
chanically,  in  the  spending  of  care  and  intelligence 
on  every  touch.     As  regards  Italian  art,  the  sculpture 
and  paintings  of  the  earlier  Renaissance,  the  aesthetic 
value  of  this  naivete  is  now  well  understood;  but  it 
has  its  value  in  Greek  sculpture  also.     There,  too, 
is  a  succession  of  phases  through  which  the  artistic 
power  and  purpose  grew  to  maturity,  with  the  endur- 
ing charm   of    an   unconventional,    unsophisticated 
freshness,  in  that  very  early  stage  of  it  illustrated  by 
these  marbles  of  ^gina,  not  less  than  in  the  work  of 
Verrocchio  and  Mino  of  Fiesole.     Effects  of  this  we 
may  note  in  that  sculpture  of  ^Egina,  not  merely  in 
the  simplicity,  or  monotony  even,  of  the  whole  com- 
position, and  in  the  exact  and  formal  correspondence 
of  one  gable  to  the  other,  but  in  the  simple  readiness 
with  which  the  designer  makes  the  two  second  spear- 
men kneel,  against  the  probability  of  the  thing,  so 
as  just  to  fill  the  space  he  has  to  compose  in.     The 
profiles  are  still  not  yet  of  the  fully  developed  Greek 


THE  MARBLES  OF  ^GINA  285 

type,  but  have  a  somewhat  sharp  prominence  of  nose 
and  chin,  as  in  Etrurian  design,  in  the  early  sculpture 
of  Cyprus,  and  in  the  earlier  Greek  vases;  and  the 
general  proportions  of  the  body  in  relation  to  the 
shoulders  are  still  somewhat  archaically  slim.  But 
then  the  workman  is  at  work  in  dry  earnestness,  with 
a  sort  of  hard  strength  in  detail,  a  scrupulousness 
verging  on  stiffness,  like  that  of  an  early  Flemish 
painter;  he  communicates  to  us  his  still  youthful 
sense  of  pleasure  in  the  experience  of  the  first  rudi- 
mentary difficulties  of  his  art  overcome.  And  withal, 
these  figures  have  in  them  a  true  expression  of  life, 
of  animation.  In  this  monument  of  Greek  chivalry, 
pensive  and  visionary  as  it  may  seem,  those  old 
Greek  knights  live  with  a  truth  like  that  of  Homer 
or  Chaucer.  In  a  sort  of  stiff  grace,  combined  with 
a  sense  of  things  bright  or  sorrowful  directly  felt,  the 
u^Eginetan  workman  is  as  it  were  the  Chaucer  of 
Greek  sculpture. 


THE   AGE   OF   ATHLETIC 
PRIZEMEN 


A   CHAPTER   IN   GREEK  ART 

IT  is  pleasant  when,  looking  at  medieval  sculpture, 
we  are  reminded  of  that  of  Greece;  pleasant  like- 
wise, conversely,  in  the  study  of  Greek  work  to  be 
put  on  thoughts  of  the  Middle  Age.  To  the  refined 
intelligence,  it  would  seem,  there  is  something  attrac- 
tive in  complex  expression  as  such.  The  Marbles 
of  sEgina,  then,  may  remind  us  of  the  Middle  Age 
where  it  passes  into  the  early  Renaissance,  of  its 
most  tenderly  finished  warrior-tombs  at  Westminster 
or  in  Florence.  A  less  mature  phase  of  medieval  art 
is  recalled  to  our  fancy  by  a  primitive  Greek  work  in 
the  Museum  of  Athens,  Hermes,  bearing  a  ram,  a 
little  one,  upon  his  shoulders.  He  bears  it  thus, 
had  borne  it  round  the  walls  of  Tanagra,  as  its  citi- 
zens told,  by  way  of  purifying  that  place  from  the 
286 


THE  AGE   OF   ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  287 

plague,  and  brings  to  mind,  of  course,  later  images 
of  the  "Good  Shepherd."  It  is  not  the  subject  of 
the  work,  however,  but  its  style,  that  sets  us  down  in 
thought  before  some  gothic  cathedral  front.  Suppose 
the  Hermes  Kriophorus  lifted  into  one  of  those  empty 
niches,  and  the  archaeologist  will  inform  you  rightly, 
as  at  Auxerre  or  Wells,  of  Italian  influence,  perhaps 
of  Italian  workmen,  and  along  with  them  indirect  old 
Greek  influence  corning  northwards;  while  the  con- 
noisseur assures  us  that  all  good  art,  at  its  respective 
stages  of  development,  is  in  essential  qualities  every- 
where alike.  It  is  observed,  as  a  note  of  imperfect 
skill,  that  in  that  carved  block  of  stone  the  animal 
is  insufficiently  detached  from  the  shoulders  of  its 
bearer.  Again,  how  precisely  gothic  is  the  effect! 
Its  very  limitation  as  sculpture  emphasises  the  func- 
tion of  the  thing  as  an  architectural  ornament.  And 
the  student  of  the  Middle  Age,  if  it  came  within  his 
range,  would  be  right  in  so  esteeming  it.  Hieratic, 
stiff  and  formal,  if  you  will,  there  is  a  knowledge  of 
the  human  body  in  it  nevertheless,  of  the  body,  and 
of  the  purely  animal  soul  therein,  full  of  the  promise 
of  what  is  coming  in  that  chapter  of  Greek  art  which 
may  properly  be  entitled,  "The  Age  of  Athletic 
Prizemen." 

That  rude  image,  a  work  perhaps  of   Calamis  of 


288          THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN 

shadowy  fame,  belongs  to  a  phase  of  art  still  in  grave- 
clothes  or  swaddling-bands,  still  strictly  subordinate 
to  religious  or  other  purposes  not  immediately  its 
own.  It  had  scarcely  to  wait  for  the  next  genera- 
tion to  be  superseded,  and  we  need  not  wonder  that 
but  little  of  it  remains.  But  that  it  was  a  widely 
active  phase  of  art,  with  all  the  vigour  of  local  varie- 
ties, is  attested  by  another  famous  archaic  monument, 
too  full  of  a  kind  of  sacred  poetry  to  be  passed  by. 
The  reader  does  not  need  to  be  reminded  that  the 
Greeks,  vivid  as  was  their  consciousness  of  this  life, 
cared  much  always  for  the  graves  of  the  dead;  that 
to  be  cared  for,  to  be  honoured,  in  one's  grave,  to 
have  Tv/t/3os  d|u.<£i7roAos,  a  frequented  tomb,  as  Pindar 
says,  was  a  considerable  motive  with  them,  even 
among  the  young.  In  the  study  of  its  funeral  monu- 
ments we  might  indeed  follow  closely  enough  the 
general  development  of  art  in  Greece  from  beginning 
to  end.  The  carved  slab  of  the  ancient  shepherd  of 
Orchomenus,  with  his  dog  and  rustic  staff,  the  stele 
of  the  ancient  man-at-arms  signed  "Aristocles,"  rich 
originally  with  colour  and  gold  and  fittings  of  bronze, 
are  among  the  few  still  visible  pictures,  or  portraits, 
it  maybe,  of  the  earliest  Greek  life.  Compare  them, 
compare  their  expression,  for  a  moment,  with  the 
deeply  incised  tombstones  of  the  Brethren  of  St. 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  289 

Francis  and  their  clients,  which  still  roughen  the 
pavement  of  Santa  Croce  at  Florence,  and  recall  the 
varnished  polychrome  decoration  of  those  Greek 
monuments  in  connexion  with  the  worn-out  blazonry 
of  the  funeral  brasses  of  England  and  Flanders.  The 
Shepherd,  the  Hoplite,  begin  a  series  continuous  to 
the  era  of  full  Attic  mastery  in  its  gentlest  mood, 
with  a  large  and  varied  store  of  memorials  of  the 
dead,  which,  not  so  strangely  as  it  may  seem  at  first 
sight,  are  like  selected  pages  from  daily  domestic 
life.  See,  for  instance,  at  the  British  Museum, 
Trypho,  "the  son  of  Eutychus,"  one  of  the  very 
pleasantest  human  likenesses  there,  though  it  came 
from  a  cemetery  —  a  son  it  was  hard  to  leave  in  it 
at  nineteen  or  twenty.  With  all  the  suppleness,  the 
delicate  muscularity,  of  the  flower  of  his  youth,  his 
handsome  face  sweetened  by  a  kind  and  simple  heart, 
in  motion,  surely,  he  steps  forth  from  some  shadowy 
chamber,  strigil  in  hand,  as  of  old,  and  with  his 
coarse  towel  or  cloak  of  monumental  drapery  over 
one  shoulder.  But  whither  precisely,  you  may  ask, 
and  as  what,  is  he  moving  there  in  the  doorway? 
Well!  in  effect,  certainly,  it  is  the  memory  of  the 
dead  lad,  emerging  thus  from  his  tomb,  —  the  still 
active  soul,  or  permanent  thought,  of  him,  as  he  most 
liked  to  be. 
u 


290  THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

The  Harpy  Tomb,  so  called  from  its  mysterious 
winged  creatures  with  human  faces,  carrying  the  little 
shrouded  souls  of  the  dead,  is  a  work  many  genera- 
tions earlier  than  that  graceful  monument  of  Trypho. 
It  was  from  an  ancient  cemetery  at  Xanthus  in  Lycia 
that  it  came  to  the  British  Museum.  The  Lycians 
were  not  a  Greek  people;  but,  as  happened  even 
with  "barbarians"  dwelling  on  the  coast  of  Asia 
Minor,  they  became  lovers  of  the  Hellenic  culture, 
and  Xanthus,  their  capital,  as  may  be  judged  from 
the  beauty  of  its  ruins,  managed  to  have  a  considera- 
ble portion  in  Greek  art,  though  infusing  it  with  a 
certain  Asiatic  colour.  The  frugally  designed  frieze 
of  the  Harpy  Tomb,  in  the  lowest  possible  relief, 
might  fairly  be  placed  between  the  monuments  of 
Assyria  and  those  primitive  Greek  works  among 
which  it  now  actually  stands.  The  stiffly  ranged 
figures  in  any  other  than  strictly  archaic  work  would 
seem  affected.  But  what  an  undercurrent  of  refined 
sentiment,  presumably  not  Asiatic,  not  "barbaric," 
lifting  those  who  felt  thus  about  death  so  early  into 
the  main  stream  of  Greek  humanity,  and  to  a  level 
of  visible  refinement  in  execution  duly  expressive 
of  it! 

In  that  old  burial-place  of  Xanthus,  then,  a  now 
nameless  family,  or  a  single  bereaved  member  of  it, 


THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  291 

represented  there  as  a  diminutive  figure  crouching 
on  the  earth  in  sorrow,  erected  this  monument,  so 
full  of  family  sentiment,  and  of  so  much  value  as 
illustrating  what  is  for  us  a  somewhat  empty  period 
in  the  history  of  Greek  art,  strictly  so  called.  Like 
the  less  conspicuously  adorned  tombs  around  it,  like 
the  tombs  in  Homer,  it  had  the  form  of  a  tower  —  a 
square  tower  about  twenty-four  feet  high,  hollowed 
at  the  top  into  a  small  chamber,  for  the  reception, 
through  a  little  doorway,  of  the  urned  ashes  of  the 
dead.  Four  sculptured  slabs  were  placed  at  this 
level  on  the  four  sides  of  the  tower  in  the  manner 
of  a  frieze.  I  said  that  the  winged  creatures  with 
human  faces  carry  the  little  souls  of  the  dead.  The 
interpretation  of  these  mystic  imageries  is,  in  truth, 
debated.  But  in  face  of  them,  and  remembering 
how  the  sculptors  and  glass-painters  of  the  Middle 
Age  constantly  represented  the  souls  of  the  dead  as 
tiny  bodies,  one  can  hardly  doubt  as  to  the  meaning 
of  these  particular  details  which,  repeated  on  every 
side,  seem  to  give  the  key-note  of  the  whole  compo- 
sition.1 Those  infernal,  or  celestial,  birds,  indeed, 

1  In  some  fine  reliefs  of  the  thirteenth  century,  Jesus  himself 
draws  near  to  the  deathbed  of  his  Mother.  The  soul  has  already 
quitted  her  body,  and  is  seated,  a  tiny  crowned  figure,  on  his  left 
arm  (as  she  had  carried  Him)  to  be  taken  to  heaven.  In  the 
beautiful  early  fourteenth  century  monument  of  Aymer  de  Valence 


292  THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

are  not  true  to  what  is  understood  to  be  the  harpy 
form.  Call  them  sirens,  rather.  People,  and  not 
only  old  people,  as  you  know,  appear  sometimes  to 
have  been  quite  charmed  away  by  what  dismays  most 
of  us.  The  tiny  shrouded  figures  which  the  sirens 
carry  are  carried  very  tenderly,  and  seem  to  yearn  in 
their  turn  towards  those  kindly  nurses  as  they  pass  on 
their  way  to  a  new  world.  Their  small  stature,  as  I 
said,  does  not  prove  them  infants,  but  only  new-born 
into  that  other  life,  and  contrasts  their  helplessness 
with  the  powers,  the  great  presences,  now  around 
them.  A  cow,  far  enough  from  Myron's  famous 
illusive  animal,  suckles  her  calf.  She  is  one  of 
almost  any  number  of  artistic  symbols  of  new-birth, 
of  the  renewal  of  life,  drawn  from  a  world  which  is, 
after  all,  so  full  of  it.  On  one  side  sits  enthroned, 
as  some  have  thought,  the  Goddess  of  Death;  on  the 
opposite  side  the  Goddess  of  Life,  with  her  flowers 
and  fruit.  Towards  her  three  young  maidens  are 
advancing  —  were  they  still  alive  thus,  graceful,  vir- 

at  Westminster,  the  soul  of  the  deceased,  "  a  small  figure  wrapped 
in  a  mantle,"  is  supported  by  two  angels  at  the  head  of  the  tomb. 
Among  many  similar  instances  may  be  mentioned  the  soul  of  the 
beggar,  Lazarus,  on  a  carved  capital  at  VezSlay;  and  the  same 
subject  in  a  coloured  window  at  Bourges.  The  clean,  white  little 
creature  seems  glad  to  escape  from  the  body,  tattooed  all  over  with 
its  sores  in  a  regular  pattern. 


THE   AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  293 

ginal,  with  their  long,  plaited  hair,  and  long,  deli- 
cately-folded tunics,  looking  forward  to  carry  on 
their  race  into  the  future?  Presented  severally,  on 
the  other  sides  of  the  dark  hollow  within,  three  male 
persons  —  a  young  man,  an  old  man,  and  a  boy  — 
seem  to  be  bringing  home,  somewhat  wearily,  to  their 
"long  home,"  the  young  man,  his  armour,  the  boy, 
and  the  old  man,  like  old  Socrates,  the  mortuary 
cock,  as  they  approach  some  shadowy,  ancient  deity 
of  the  tomb,  or  it  may  be  the  throned  impersonation 
of  their  " fathers  of  old."  The  marble  surface  was 
coloured,  at  least  in  part,  with  fixtures  of  metal  here 
and  there.  The  designer,  whoever  he  may  have 
been,  was  possessed  certainly  of  some  tranquillising 
second  thoughts  concerning  death,  which  may  well 
have  had  their  value  for  mourners;  and  he  has  ex- 
pressed those  thoughts,  if  lispingly,  yet  with  no  faults 
of  commission,  with  a  befitting  grace,  and,  in  truth, 
at  some  points,  with  something  already  of  a  really 
Hellenic  definition  and  vigour.  He  really  speaks 
to  us  in  his  work,  through  his  symbolic  and  imitative 
figures, —  speaks  to  our  intelligence  persuasively. 

The  surviving  thought  of  the  lad  Trypho,  returning 
from  his  tomb  to  the  living,  was  of  athletic  character; 
how  he  was  and  looked  when  in  the  flower  of  his 
strength.  And  it  is  not  of  the  dead  but  of  the  living, 


294  THE   AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

who  look  and  are  as  he,  that  the  artistic  genius  of 
this  period  is  full.  It  is  a  period,  truly,  not  of  bat- 
tles, such  as  those  commemorated  in  the  Marbles  of 
sEgina,  but  of  more  peaceful  contests  —  at  Olympia, 
at  the  Isthmus,  at  Delphi  —  the  glories  of  which  Pin- 
dar sang  in  language  suggestive  of  a  sort  of  metallic 
beauty,  firmly  cut  and  embossed,  like  crowns  of  wild 
olive,  of  parsley  and  bay,  in  crisp  gold.  First,  how- 
ever, it  had  been  necessary  that  Greece  should  win 
its  liberty,  political  standing-ground,  and  a  really 
social  •  air  to  breathe  in,  with  development  of  the 
youthful  limbs.  Of  this  process  Athens  was  the 
chief  scene;  and  the  earliest  notable  presentment  of 
humanity  by  Athenian  art  was  in  celebration  of  those 
who  had  vindicated  liberty  with  their  lives  —  two 
youths  again,  in  a  real  incident,  which  had,  however, 
the  quality  of  a  poetic  invention,  turning,  as  it  did, 
on  that  ideal  or  romantic  friendship  which  was  char- 
acteristic of  the  Greeks. 

With  something,  perhaps,  of  hieratic  convention, 
yet  presented  as  they  really  were,  as  friends  and 
admirers  loved  to  think  of  them,  Harmodius  and 
Aristogeiton  stood,  then,  soon  after  their  heroic 
death,  side  by  side  in  bronze,  the  work  of  Antenor, 
in  a  way  not  to  be  forgotten,  when,  thirty  years  after- 
wards, a  foreign  tyrant,  Xerxes,  carried  them  away  to 


THE   AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN          295 

Persia.  Kritios  and  Nesistes  were,  therefore,  em- 
ployed for  a  reproduction  of  them,  which  would 
naturally  be  somewhat  more  advanced  in  style.  In 
its  turn  this  also  disappeared.  The  more  curious 
student,  however,  would  still  fancy  he  saw  the  trace 
of  it  —  of  that  copy,  or  of  the  original,  afterwards 
restored  to  Athens  —  here  or  there,  on  vase  or  coin. 
But  in  fact  the  very  images  of  the  heroic  youths  were 
become  but  ghosts,  haunting  the  story  of  Greek  art, 
till  they  found  or  seemed  to  find  a  body  once  more 
when,  not  many  years  since,  an  acute  observer  de- 
tected, as  he  thought,  in  a  remarkable  pair  of  statues 
in  the  Museum  of  Naples,  if  freed  from  incorrect 
restorations  and  rightly  set  together,  a  veritable  de- 
scendant from  the  original  work  of  Antenor.  With 
all  their  truth  to  physical  form  and  movement,  with 
a  conscious  mastery  of  delineation,  they  were,  never- 
theless, in  certain  details,  in  the  hair,  for  instance, 
archaic,  or  rather  archaistic  —  designedly  archaic,  as 
from  the  hand  of  a  workman,  for  whom,  in  this  sub- 
ject, archaism,  the  very  touch  of  the  ancient  master, 
had  a  sentimental  or  even  a  religious  value.  And 
unmistakeably  they  were  young  assassins,  moving, 
with  more  than  fraternal  unity,  the  younger  in  ad- 
vance of  and  covering  the  elder,  according  to  the 
account  given  by  Herodotus,  straight  to  their  pur- 


296          THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN 

pose ;  —  against  two  wicked  brothers,  as  you  remem- 
ber, two  good  friends,  on  behalf  of  the  dishonoured 
sister  of  one  of  them. 

Archaeologists  have  loved  to  adjust  them  tenta- 
tively, with  various  hypotheses  as  to  the  precise 
manner  in  which  they  thus  went  together.  Mean- 
time they  have  figured  plausibly  as  representative  of 
Attic  sculpture  at  the  end  of  its  first  period,  still 
immature  indeed,  but  with  a  just  claim  to  take 
breath,  so  to  speak,  having  now  accomplished  some 
stades  of  the  journey.  Those  young  heroes  of  Athe- 
nian democracy,  then,  indicate  already  what  place 
Athens  and  Attica  will  occupy  in  the  supreme  age  of 
art  soon  to  come;  indicate  also  the  subject  from 
which  that  age  will  draw  the  main  stream  of  its  in- 
spiration—  living  youth,  "iconic  "  in  its  exact  por- 
traiture, or  "heroic  "  as  idealised  in  various  degrees 
under  the  influence  of  great  thoughts  about  it  — 
youth  in  its  self-denying  contention  towards  great 
effects;  great  intrinsically,  as  at  Marathon  or  when 
Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton  fell,  or  magnified  by 
the  force  and  splendour  of  Greek  imagination  with 
the  stimulus  of  the  national  games.  For  the  most 
part,  indeed,  it  is  not  with  youth  taxed  spasmodi- 
cally, like  that  of  Harmodius  and  Aristogeiton,  and 
the  "necessity"  that  was  upon  it,  that  the  Athenian 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN          297 

mind  and  heart  are  now  busied;  but  with  youth  in 
its  voluntary  labours,  its  habitual  and  measured  dis- 
cipline, labour  for  its  own  sake,  or  in  wholly  friendly 
contest  for  prizes  which  in  reality  borrow  all  their 
value  from  the  quality  of  the  receiver. 

We  are  with  Pindar,  you  see,  in  this  athletic  age 
of  Greek  sculpture.  It  is  the  period  no  longer  of 
battle  against  a  foreign  foe,  recalling  the  Homeric 
ideal,  nor  against  the  tyrant  at  home,  fixing  a  dubi- 
ous ideal  for  the  future,  but  of  peaceful  combat  as  a 
fine  art — pulvis  Olympicus.  Anticipating  the  arts, 
poetry,  a  generation  before  Myron  and  Polycleitus, 
had  drawn  already  from  the  youthful  combatants  in 
the  great  national  games  the  motives  of  those  Odes, 
the  bracing  words  of  which,  as  I  said,  are  like  work 
in  fine  bronze,  or,  as  Pindar  himself  suggests,  in 
ivory  and  gold.  Sung  in  the  victor's  supper- room, 
or  at  the  door  of  his  abode,  or  with  the  lyre  and  the 
pipe  as  they  took  him  home  in  procession  through 
the  streets,  or  commemorated  the  happy  day,  or  in  a 
temple  where  he  laid  up  his  crown,  Pindar's  songs 
bear  witness  to  the  pride  of  family  or  township  in  the 
physical  perfection  of  son  or  citizen,  and  his  conse- 
quent success  in  the  long  or  the  short  foot-race,  or 
the  foot-race  in  armour,  or  the  pentathlon,  or  any 
part  of  it.  "Now  on  one,  now  on  another,"  as  the 


298          THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN 

poet  tells,  "doth  the  grace  that  quickeneth  (quick- 
eneth,  literally,  on  the  race-course)  look  favourably." 
"A-pia-rov  vSup  he  declares  indeed,  and  the  actual 
prize,  as  we  know,  was  in  itself  of  little  or  no  worth 
—  a  cloak,  in  the  Athenian  games,  but  at  the  greater 
games  a  mere  handful  of  parsley,  a  few  sprigs  of 
pine  or  wild  olive.  The  prize  has,  so  to  say,  only 
an  intellectual  or  moral  value.  Yet  actually  Pindar's 
own  verse  is  all  of  gold  and  wine  and  flowers,  is 
itself  avowedly  a  flower,  or  "liquid  nectar,"  or  "the 
sweet  fruit  of  his  soul  to  men  that  are  winners  in  the 
games."  "As  when  from  a  wealthy  hand  one  lifting 
a  cup,  made  glad  within  with  the  dew  of  the  vine, 
maketh  gift  thereof  to  a  youth :  "  —  the  keynote  of 
Pindar's  verse  is  there!  This  brilliant  living  youth 
of  his  day,  of  the  actual  time,  for  whom,  as  he  says, 
he  "  awakes  the  clear-toned  gale  of  song  "  —  eVeW 
oipov  Xiyw  —  that  song  mingles  sometimes  with  the 
splendours  of  a  recorded  ancient  lineage,  or  with  the 
legendary  greatness  of  a  remoter  past,  its  gods  and 
heroes,  patrons  or  ancestors,  it  might  be,  of  the 
famous  young  man  of  the  hour,  or  with  the  glory  and 
solemnity  of  the  immortals  themselves  taking  a  share 
in  mortal  contests.  On  such  pretext  he  will  tell  a 
new  story,  or  bring  to  its  last  perfection  by  his  man- 
ner of  telling  it,  his  pregnancy  and  studied  beauty  of 


THE   AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN          299 

expression,  an  old  one.  The  tale  of  Castor  and 
Polydeukes,  the  appropriate  patrons  of  virginal  yet 
virile  youth,  starred  and  mounted,  he  tells  in  all  its 
human  interest. 

"Ample  is  the  glory  stored  up  for  Olympian  win- 
ners." And  what  Pindar's  contemporaries  asked  of 
him  for  the  due  appreciation,  the  consciousness,  of 
it,  by  way  of  song,  that  the  next  generation  sought, 
by  way  of  sculptural  memorial  in  marble,  and  above 
all,  as  it  seems,  in  bronze.  The  keen  demand  for 
athletic  statuary,  the  honour  attached  to  the  artist 
employed  to  make  his  statue  at  Olympia,  or  at  home, 
bear  witness  again  to  the  pride  with  which  a  Greek 
town,  the  pathos,  it  might  be,  with  which  a  family, 
looked  back  to  the  victory  of  one  of  its  members. 
In  the  courts  of  Olympia  a  whole  population  in 
marble  and  bronze  gathered  quickly, —  a  world  of 
portraits,  out  of  which,  as  the  purged  and  perfected 
essence,  the  ideal  soul,  of  them,  emerged  the  Diadu- 
menus,  for  instance,  the  Discobolus,  the  so-called 
Jason  of  the  Louvre.  Olympia  was  in  truth,  as 
Pindar  says  again,  a  mother  of  gold-crowned  contests, 
the  mother  of  a  large  offspring.  All  over  Greece  the 
enthusiasm  for  gymnastic,  for  the  life  of  the  gymna- 
sia, prevailed.  It  was  a  gymnastic  which,  under  the 
happy  conditions  of  that  time,  was  already  surely 


300  THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

what  Plato  pleads  for,  already  one  half  music, 
a  matter,  partly,  of  character  and  of  the  soul,  of  the 
fair  proportion  between  soul  and  body,  of  the  soul 
with  itself.  Who  can  doubt  it  who  sees  and  con- 
siders the  still  irresistible  grace,  the  contagious 
pleasantness,  of  the  Discobolus,  the  Diadumenus,  and 
a  few  other  precious  survivals  from  the  athletic  age 
which  immediately  preceded  the  manhood  of  Phei- 
dias,  between  the  Persian  and  the  Peloponnesian 
wars? 

Now,  this  predominance  of  youth,  of  the  youthful 
form,  in  art,  of  bodily  gymnastic  promoting  natural 
advantages  to  the  utmost,  of  the  physical  perfection 
developed  thereby,  is  a  sign  that  essential  mastery 
has  been  achieved  by  the  artist  —  the  power,  that  is 
to  say,  of  a  full  and  free  realisation.  For  such 
youth,  in  its  very  essence,  is  a  matter  properly  within 
the  limits  of  the  visible,  the  empirical,  world;  and  in 
the  presentment  of  it  there  will  be  no  place  for  sym- 
bolic hint,  none  of  that  reliance  on  the  helpful  im- 
agination of  the  spectator,  the  legitimate  scope  of 
which  is  a  large  one,  when  art  is  dealing  with  relig- 
ious objects,  with  what  in  the  fulness  of  its  own  nat- 
ure is  not  really  expressible  at  all.  In  any  passable 
representation  of  the  Greek  discobolus,  as  in  any 
passable  representation  of  an  English  cricketer,  there 


THE   AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  301 

can  be  no  successful  evasion  of  the  natural  difficulties 
of  the  thing  to  be  done  —  the  difficulties  of  compet- 
ing with  nature  itself,  or  its  maker,  in  that  marvel- 
lous combination  of  motion  and  rest,  of  inward 
mechanism  with  the  so  smoothly  finished  surface  and 
outline  —  finished  ad  unguem  —  which  enfold  it. 

Of  the  gradual  development  of  such  mastery  of 
natural  detail,  a  veritable  counterfeit  of  nature,  the 
veritable  rhythmus  of  the  runner,  for  example  — 
twinkling  heel  and  ivory  shoulder  —  we  have  hints 
and  traces  in  the  historians  of  art.  One  had  attained 
the  very  turn  and  texture  of  the  crisp  locks,  another 
the  very  feel  of  the  tense  nerve  and  full-flushed  vein, 
while  with  another  you  saw  the  bosom  of  Ladas  ex- 
pand, the  lips  part,  as  if  for  a  last  breath  ere  he 
reached  the  goal.  It  was  like  a  child  finding  little 
by  little  the  use  of  its  limbs,  the  testimony  of  its 
senses,  at  a  definite  moment.  With  all  its  poetic 
impulse,  it  is  an  age  clearly  of  faithful  observation, 
of  what  we  call  realism,  alike  in  its  iconic  and  heroic 
work;  alike  in  portraiture,  that  is  to  say,  and  in  the 
presentment  of  divine  or  abstract  types.  Its  work- 
men are  close  students  now  of  the  living  form  as 
such;  aim  with  success  at  an  ever  larger  and  more 
various  expression  of  its  details;  or  replace  a  con- 
ventional statement  of  them  by  a  real  and  lively  one. 


302  THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

That  it  was  thus  is  attested  indirectly  by  the  fact  that 
they  busied  themselves,  seemingly  by  way  of  a  tour 
de  force,  and  with  no  essential  interest  in  such  sub- 
ject, alien  as  it  was  from  the  pride  of  health  which 
is  characteristic  of  the  gymnastic  life,  with  the  ex- 
pression of  physical  pain,  in  Philoctetes,  for  instance. 
The  adroit,  the  swift,  the  strong,  in  full  and  free 
exercise  of  their  gifts,  to  the  delight  of  others  and 
of  themselves,  though  their  sculptural  record  has  for 
the  most  part  perished,  are  specified  in  ancient  lit- 
erary notices  as  the  sculptor's  favourite  subjects, 
repeated,  remodelled,  over  and  over  again,  for  the 
adornment  of  the  actual  scene  of  athletic  success,  or 
the  market-place  at  home  of  the  distant  Northern  or 
Sicilian  town  whence  the  prizeman  had  come.  —  A 
countless  series  of  popular  illustrations  to  Pindar's 
Odes !  And  if  art  was  still  to  minister  to  the  relig- 
ious sense,  it  could  only  be  by  clothing  celestial 
spirits  also  as  nearly  as  possible  in  the  bodily  sem- 
blance of  the  various  athletic  combatants,  whose 
patrons  respectively  they  were  supposed  to  be. 

The  age  to  which  we  are  come  in  the  story  of 
Greek  art  presents  to  us  indeed  only  a  chapter  of 
scattered  fragments,  of  names  that  are  little  more, 
with  but  surmise  of  their  original  significance,  and 
mere  reasonings  as  to  the  sort  of  art  that  may  have 


THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  303 

occupied  what  are  really  empty  spaces.  Two  names, 
however,  connect  themselves  gloriously  with  certain 
extant  works  of  art;  copies,  it  is  true,  at  various 
removes,  yet  copies  of  what  is  still  found  delightful 
through  them,  and  by  copyists  who  for  the  most  part 
were  themselves  masters.  Through  the  variations  of 
the  copyist,  the  restorer,  the  mere  imitator,  these 
works  are  reducible  to  two  famous  original  types  — 
the  Discobolus  or  quoit-player,  of  Myron,  the  beau 
ideal  (we  may  use  that  term  for  once  justly)  of  ath- 
letic motion;  and  the  Diadumenus  of  Polycleitus, 
as,  binding  the  fillet  or  crown  of  victory  upon  his 
head,  he  presents  the  beau  ideal  of  athletic  repose, 
and  almost  begins  to  think. 

Myron  was  a  native  of  Eleutherae,  and  a  pupil  of 
Ageladas  of  Argos.  There  is  nothing  more  to  tell  by 
way  of  positive  detail  of  this  so  famous  artist,  save 
that  the  main  scene  of  his  activity  was  Athens,  now 
become  the  centre  of  the  artistic  as  of  all  other  modes 
of  life  in  Greece.  Multiplicasse  veritatem  videtur, 
says  Pliny.  He  was  in  fact  an  earnest  realist  or 
naturalist,  and  rose  to  central  perfection  in  the  por- 
traiture, the  idealised  portraiture,  of  athletic  youth, 
from  amastery  first  of  all  in  the  delineation  of  infe- 
rior objects,  of  little  lifeless  or  living  things.  Think, 
however,  for  a  moment,  how  winning  such  objects 


304  THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

are  still,  as  presented  on  Greek  coins;  — the  ear  of 
corn,  for  instance,  on  those  of  Metapontum;  the 
microscopic  cockle-shell,  the  dolphins,  on  the  coins 
of  Syracuse.  Myron,  then,  passes  from  pleasant 
truth  of  that  kind  to  the  delineation  of  the  worthier 
sorts  of  animal  life, —  the  ox,  the  dog  —  to  nothing 
short  of  illusion  in  the  treatment  of  them,  as  ancient 
connoisseurs  would  have  you  understand.  It  is  said 
that  there  are  thirty-six  extant  epigrams  on  his  brazen 
cow.  That  animal  has  her  gentle  place  in  Greek  art, 
from  the  Siren  tomb,  suckling  her  young  there,  as 
the  type  of  eternal  rejuvenescence,  onwards  to  the 
procession  of  the  Elgin  frieze,  where,  still  breathing 
deliciously  of  the  distant  pastures,  she  is  led  to  the 
altar.  We  feel  sorry  for  her,  as  we  look,  so  lifelike 
is  the  carved  marble.  The  sculptor  who  worked 
there,  whoever  he  may  have  been,  had  profited  doubt- 
less by  the  study  of  Myron's  famous  work.  For  what 
purpose  he  made  it,  does  not  appear;  — as  an  archi- 
tectural ornament;  or  a  votive  offering;  perhaps  only 
because  he  liked  making  it.  In  hyperbolic  epigram, 
at  any  rate,  the  animal  breathes,  explaining  suffi- 
ciently the  point  of  Pliny's  phrase  regarding  Myron 
—  Corporum  curiosus.  And  when  he  came  to  his 
main  business  with  the  quoit-player,  the  wrestler,  the 
runner,  he  did  not  for  a  moment  forget  that  they  too 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN          305 

were  animals,  young  animals,  delighting  in  natural 
motion,  in  free  course  through  the  yielding  air,  over 
uninterrupted  space,  according  to  Aristotle's  defini- 
tion of  pleasure  :  —  "  the  unhindered  exercise  of  one's 
natural  force."  Corporum  tenus  curiosus :  —  he  was  a 
"  curious  workman  "  as  far  as  the  living  body  is  con- 
cerned. Pliny  goes  on  to  qualify  that  phrase  by 
saying  that  he  did  not  express  the  sensations  of  the 
mind  —  animi  sensus.  But  just  there,  in  fact,  pre- 
cisely in  such  limitation,  we  find  what  authenticates 
Myron's  peculiar  value  in  the  evolution  of  Greek  art. 
It  is  of  the  essence  of  the  athletic  prizeman,  involved 
in  the  very  ideal  of  the  quoit- player,  the  cricketer, 
not  to  give  expression  to  mind,  in  any  antagonism  to, 
or  invasion  of,  the  body ;  to  mind  as  anything  more 
than  a  function  of  the  body,  whose  healthful  balance 
of  functions  it  may  so  easily  perturb ;  —  to  disavow 
that  insidious  enemy  of  the  fairness  of  the  bodily  soul 
as  such. 

Yet  if  the  art  of  Myron  was  but  little  occupied  with 
the  reasonable  soul  (animus),  with  those  mental  situ- 
ations the  expression  of  which,  though  it  may  have  a 
pathos  and  a  beauty  of  its  own,  is  for  the  most  part 
adverse  to  the  proper  expression  of  youth,  to  the 
beauty  of  youth,  by  causing  it  to  be  no  longer  youth- 
ful, he  was  certainly  a  master  of  the  animal  or  physi- 


306  THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

cal  soul  there  (anima);  how  it  is,  how  it  displays 
itself,  as  illustrated,  for  instance,  in  the  Discobolus. 
Of  voluntary  animal  motion  the  very  soul  is  undoubt- 
edly there.  We  have  but  translations  into  marble  of 
the  original  in  bronze.  In  that,  it  was  as  if  a  blast 
of  cool  wind  had  congealed  the  metal,  or  the  living 
youth,  fixed  him  imperishably  in  that  moment  of  rest 
which  lies  between  two  opposed  motions,  the  back- 
ward swing  of  the  right  arm,  the  movement  forwards 
on  which  the  left  foot  is  in  the  very  act  of  starting. 
The  matter  of  the  thing,  the  stately  bronze  or  marble, 
thus  rests  indeed;  but  the  artistic  form  of  it,  in 
truth,  scarcely  more,  even  to  the  eye,  than  the  roll- 
ing ball  or  disk,  may  be  said  to  rest,  at  every  moment 
of  its  course, —  just  metaphysically,  you  know. 

This  mystery  of  combined  motion  and  rest,  of  rest 
in  motion,  had  involved,  of  course,  on  the  part  of 
the  sculptor  who  had  mastered  its  secret,  long  and 
intricate  consideration.  Archaic  as  it  is,  primitive 
still  in  some  respects,  full  of  the  primitive  youth  it 
celebrates,  it  is,  in  fact,  a  learned  work,  and  sug- 
gested to  a  great  analyst  of  literary  style,  singular  as 
it  may  seem,  the  "elaborate  "  or  "contorted  "  manner 
in  literature  of  the  later  Latin  writers,  which,  how- 
ever, he  finds  "  laudable  "  for  its  purpose.  Yet  with 
all  its  learned  involution,  thus  so  oddly  characterised 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN          307 

by  Quintilian,  so  entirely  is  this  quality  subordinated 
to  the  proper  purpose  of  the  Discobolus  as  a  work  of 
art,  a  thing  to  be  looked  at  rather  than  to  think 
about,  that  it  makes  one  exclaim  still,  with  the  poet 
of  athletes,  "The  natural  is  ever  best!  "  —  TO  Se  <£ua 
O.TTO.V  KPO.TLO-TOV.  Perhaps  that  triumphant,  unim- 
peachable naturalness  is  after  all  the  reason  why,  on 
seeing  it  for  the  first  time,  it  suggests  no  new  view 
of  the  beauty  of  human  form,  or  point  of  view  for 
the  regarding  of  it;  is  acceptable  rather  as  embody- 
ing (say,  in  one  perfect  flower)  all  one  has  ever  fan- 
cied or  seen,  in  old  Greece  or  on  Thames'  side,  of 
the  unspoiled  body  of  youth,  thus  delighting  itself 
and  others,  at  that  perfect,  because  unconscious, 
point  of  good-fortune,  as  it  moves  or  rests  just  there 
for  a  moment,  between  the  animal  and  spiritual 
worlds.  "Grant  them,"  you  pray  in  Pindar's  own 
words,  "grant  them  with  feet  so  light  to  pass  through 
life!" 

The  face  of  the  young  man,  as  you  see  him  in  the 
British  Museum  for  instance,  with  fittingly  inexpres- 
sive expression,  (look  into,  look  at  the  curves  of,  the 
blossomlike  cavity  of  the  opened  mouth)  is  beautiful, 
but  not  altogether  virile.  The  eyes,  the  facial  lines 
which  they  gather  into  one,  seem  ready  to  follow  the 
coming  motion  of  the  discus  as  those  of  an  onlooker 


308          THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN 

might  be ;  but  that  head  does  not  really  belong  to  the 
discobolus.  To  be  assured  of  this  you  have  but  to 
compare  with  that  version  in  the  British  Museum  the 
most  authentic  of  all  derivations  from  the  original, 
preserved  till  lately  at  the  Palazzo  Massimi  in  Rome. 
Here,  the  vigorous  head  also,  with  the  face,  smooth 
enough,  but  spare,  and  tightly  drawn  over  muscle 
and  bone,  is  sympathetic  with,  yields  itself  to,  the 
concentration,  in  the  most  literal  sense,  of  all  beside; 
—  is  itself,  in  very  truth,  the  steady  centre  of  the 
discus,  which  begins  to  spin;  as  the  source  of  will, 
the  source  of  the  motion  with  which  the  discus  is 
already  on  the  wing,  —  that,  and  the  entire  form. 
The  Discobolus  of  the  Massimi  Palace  presents,  more- 
over, in  the  hair,  for  instance,  those  survivals  of 
primitive  manner  which  would  mark  legitimately 
Myron's  actual  pre-Pheidiac  stand-point;  as  they  are 
congruous  also  with  a  certain  archaic,  a  more  than 
merely  athletic,  spareness  of  form  generally  —  de- 
lightful touches  of  unreality  in  this  realist  of  a  great 
time,  and  of  a  sort  of  conventionalism  that  has  an 
attraction  in  itself. 

Was  it  a  portrait?  That  one  can  so  much  as  ask 
the  question  is  a  proof  how  far  the  master,  in  spite 
of  his  lingering  archaism,  is  come  already  from  the 
antique  marbles  of  ^Egina.  Was  it  the  portrait  of 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN          309 

one  much-admired  youth,  or  rather  the  type,  the 
rectified  essence,  of  many  such,  at  the  most  pregnant, 
the  essential,  moment,  of  the  exercise  of  their  natu- 
ral powers,  of  what  they  really  were  ?  Have  we  here, 
in  short,  the  sculptor  Myron's  reasoned  memory  of 
many  a  quoit-player,  of  a  long  flight  of  quoit-players; 
as,  were  he  here,  he  might  have  given  us  the  crick- 
eter, the  passing  generation  of  cricketers,  sub  specie 
eternitatis,  under  the  eternal  form  of  art? 

Was  it  in  that  case  a  commemorative  or  votive 
statue,  such  as  Pausanias  found  scattered  throughout 
Greece  ?  Was  it,  again,  designed  to  be  part  only  of 
some  larger  decorative  scheme,  as  some  have  sup- 
posed of  the  Venus  of  Melos,  or  a  work  of  genre  as 
we  say,  a  thing  intended  merely  to  interest,  to  gratify 
the  taste,  with  no  further  purpose?  In  either  case  it 
may  have  represented  some  legendary  quoit-player 

—  Perseus  at  play  with  Acrisius  fatally,  as  one  has 
suggested;  or  Apollo  with  Hyacinthus,  as  Ovid  de- 
scribes him  in  a  work  of  poetic  genre. 

And  if  the  Discobolus  is,  after  all,  a  work  of  genre 

—  a  work  merely  imitative  of  the  detail  of  actual  life 

—  for  the  adornment  of  a  room  in  a  private  house,  it 
would  be  only  one  of  many  such  produced  in  Myron's 
day.     It  would  be,  in  fact,  one  of  the  pristce  directly 
attributed  to  him  by  Pliny,  little  congruous  as  they 


310  THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

may  seem  with  the  grandiose  motions  of  his  more 
characteristic  work.  The  pristce,  the  sawyers,  —  a 
celebrated  creation  of  the  kind, —  is  supposed  to 
have  given  its  name  to  the  whole  class  of  like  things. 
No  age,  indeed,  since  the  rudiments  of  art  were 
mastered,  can  have  been  without  such  reproductions 
of  the  pedestrian  incidents  of  every  day,  for  the  mere 
pleasant  exercise  at  once  of  the  curiosity  of  the  spec- 
tator and  the  imitative  instinct  of  the  producer.  The 
Terra-  Cotta  Rooms  of  the  Louvre  and  the  British 
Museum  are  a  proof  of  it.  One  such  work  indeed 
there  is,  delightful  in  itself,  technically  exquisite, 
most  interesting  by  its  history,  which  properly  finds 
its  place  beside  the  larger,  the  full-grown,  physical 
perfection  of  the  Discobolus,  one  of  whose  alert 
younger  brethren  he  may  be,  —  the  Spinario  namely, 
the  boy  drawing  a  thorn  from  his  foot,  preserved  in 
the  so  rare,  veritable  antique  bronze  at  Rome,  in  the 
Museum  of  the  Capitol,  and  well  known  in  a  host  of 
ancient  and  modern  reproductions. 

There,  or  elsewhere  in  Rome,  tolerated  in  the  gen- 
eral destruction  of  ancient  sculpture  —  like  the  "Wolf 
of  the  Capitol,"  allowed  by  way  of  heraldic  sign,  as 
in  modern  Siena,  or  like  the  equestrian  figure  of 
Marcus  Aurelius  doing  duty  as  Charlemagne, —  like 
those,  but  like  very  few  other  works  of  the  kind. 


THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  311 

the  Spinario  remained,  well-known  and  in  honour, 
throughout  the  Middle  Age.  Stories  like  that  of 
Ladas  the  famous  runner,  who  died  as  he  reached 
the  goal  in  a  glorious  foot-race  of  boys,  the  subject 
of  a  famous  work  by  Myron  himself,  (the  "last 
breath,"  as  you  saw,  was  on  the  boy's  lips)  were  told 
of  the  half-grown  bronze  lad  at  the  Capitol.  Of 
necessity,  but  fatally,  he  must  pause  for  a  few 
moments  in  his  course;  or  the  course  is  at  length 
over,  or  the  breathless  journey  with  some  all- 
important  tidings;  and  now,  not  till  now,  he  thinks 
of  resting  to  draw  from  the  sole  of  his  foot  the  cruel 
thorn,  driven  into  it  as  he  ran.  In  any  case,  there 
he  still  sits  for  a  moment,  for  ever,  amid  the  smiling 
admiration  of  centuries,  in  the  agility,  in  the  perfect 
naivete  also  as  thus  occupied,  of  his  sixteenth  year,  to 
which  the  somewhat  lengthy  or  attenuated  structure 
of  the  limbs  is  conformable.  And  then,  in  this 
attenuation,  in  the  almost  Egyptian  proportions,  in 
the  shallowness  of  the  chest  and  shoulders  especially, 
in  the  Phoenician  or  old  Greek  sharpness  and  length 
of  profile,  and  the  long,  conventional,  wire-drawn 
hair  of  the  boy,  arching  formally  over  the  forehead 
and  round  the  neck,  there  is  something  of  archaism, 
of  that  archaism  which  survives,  truly,  in  Myron's 
own  work,  blending  with  the  grace  and  power  of 


312  THE   AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

well-nigh  the  maturity  of  Greek  art.  The  blending 
of  interests,  of  artistic  alliances,  is  certainly  de- 
lightful. 

Polycleitus,  the  other  famous  name  of  this  period, 
and  with  a  fame  justified  by  work  we  may  still  study, 
at  least  in  its  immediate  derivatives,  had  also  tried 
his  hand  with  success  in  such  subjects.  In  the 
Astragalizontes,  for  instance,  well-known  to  antiquity 
in  countless  reproductions,  he  had  treated  an  inci- 
dent of  the  every-day  life  of  every  age,  which  Plato 
sketches  by  the  way. 

Myron,  by  patience  of  genius,  had  mastered  the 
secret  of  the  expression  of  movement,  had  plucked 
out  the  very  heart  of  its  mystery.  Polycleitus,  on 
the  other  hand,  is  above  all  the  master  of  rest,  of  the 
expression  of  rest  after  toil,  in  the  victorious  and 
crowned  athlete,  Diadumenus.  In  many  slightly 
varying  forms,  marble  versions  of  the  original  in 
bronze  of  Delos,  the  Diadumenus,  indifferently, 
mechanically,  is  binding  round  his  head  a  ribbon 
or  fillet.  In  the  Vaison  copy  at  the  British  Museum 
it  was  of  silver.  That  simple  fillet  is,  in  fact,  a 
diadem,  a  crown,  and  he  assumes  it  as  a  victor;  but, 
as  I  said,  mechanically,  and,  prize  in  hand,  might 
be  asking  himself  whether  after  all  it  had  been  worth 
while.  For  the  active  beauty  of  the  Agonistes  of 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  313 

which  Myron's  art  is  full,  we  have  here,  then,  the 
passive  beauty  of  the  victor.  But  the  later  incident, 
the  realisation  of  rest,  is  actually  in  affinity  with  a 
certain  earliness,  so  to  call  it,  in  the  temper  and 
work  of  Polycleitus.  He  is  already  something  of  a 
reactionary;  or  pauses,  rather,  to  enjoy,  to  convey 
enjoyably  to  others,  the  full  savour  of  a  particular 
moment  in  the  development  of  his  craft,  the  moment 
of  the  perfecting  of  restful  form,  before  the  mere 
consciousness  of  technical  mastery  in  delineation 
urges  forward  the  art  of  sculpture  to  a  bewildering 
infinitude  of  motion.  In  opposition  to  the  ease,  the 
freedom,  of  others,  his  aim  is,  by  a  voluntary  re- 
straint in  the  exercise  of  such  technical  mastery,  to 
achieve  nothing  less  than  the  impeccable,  within 
certain  narrow  limits.  He  still  hesitates,  is  self- 
exacting,  seems  even  to  have  checked  a  growing 
readiness  of  hand  in  the  artists  about  him.  He  was 
renowned  as  a  graver,  found  much  to  do  with  the 
chisel,  introducing  many  a  fine  after- thought,  when 
the  rough-casting  of  his  work  was  over.  He  studied 
human  form  under  such  conditions  as  would  bring 
out  its  natural  features,  its  static  laws,  in  their  en- 
tirety, their  harmony;  and  in  an  academic  work,  so 
to  speak,  no  longer  to  be  clearly  identified  in  what 
may  be  derivations  from  it,  he  claimed  to  have  fixed 


314  THE  AGE   OF   ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

the  canon,  the  common  measure,  of  perfect  man. 
Yet  with  Polycleitus  certainly  the  measure  of  man 
was  not  yet  "the  measure  of  an  angel,"  but  still  only 
that  of  mortal  youth;  of  youth,  however,  in  that 
scrupulous  and  uncontaminate  purity  of  form  which 
recommended  itself  even  to  the  Greeks  as  befitting 
messengers  from  the  gods,  if  such  messengers  should 
come. 

And  yet  a  large  part  of  Myron's  contemporary 
fame  depended  on  his  religious  work  —  on  his  statue 
of  Here,  for  instance,  in  ivory  and  gold  —  that  too, 
doubtless,  expressive,  as  appropriately  to  its  subject 
as  to  himself,  of  a  passive  beauty.  We  see  it  still, 
perhaps,  in  the  coins  of  Argos.  And  has  not  the 
crowned  victor,  too,  in  that  mechanic  action,  in  his 
demure  attitude,  something  which  reminds  us  of  the 
religious  significance  of  the  Greek  athletic  service? 
It  was  a  sort  of  worship,  you  know  —  that  department 
of  public  life;  such  worship  as  Greece,  still  in  its 
superficial  youth,  found  itself  best  capable  of.  At 
least  those  solemn  contests  began  and  ended  with 
prayer  and  sacrifice.  Their  most  honoured  prizes 
were  a  kind  of  religiously  symbolical  objects.  The 
athletic  life  certainly  breathes  of  abstinence,  of  rule, 
and  the  keeping  under  of  one's  self.  And  here  in 
the  Diadumenus  we  have  one  of  its  priests,  a  priest 


THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN  315 

of  the  religion  whose  central  motive  was  what  has 
been  called  "the  worship  of  the  body,"  —  its  modest 
priest. 

The  so-called  Jason  at  the  Louvre,  the  Apoxyo- 
menus,  and  a  certain  number  of  others  you  will  meet 
with  from  time  to  time  —  whatever  be  the  age  and 
derivation  of  the  actual  marble  which  reproduced 
for  Rome,  for  Africa,  or  Gaul,  types  that  can  have 
had  their  first  origin  in  one  only  time  and  place  — 
belong,  at  least  aesthetically,  to  this  group,  together 
with  the  Adorante  of  Berlin,  Winckelmann's  antique 
favourite,  who  with  uplifted  face  and  hands  seems 
to  be  indeed  in  prayer,  looks  immaculate  enough  to 
be  interceding  for  others.  As  to  the  Jason  of  the 
Louvre,  one  asks  at  first  sight  of  him,  as  he  stoops  to 
make  fast  the  sandal  on  his  foot,  whether  the  young 
man  can  be  already  so  marked  a  personage.  Is  he 
already  the  approved  hero,  bent  on  some  great  act 
of  his  famous  epopee ;  or  mere  youth  only,  again, 
arraying  itself  mechanically,  but  alert  in  eye  and 
soul,  prompt  to  be  roused  to  any  great  action  what- 
ever? The  vaguely  opened  lips  certainly  suggest  the 
latter  view;  if  indeed  the  body  and  the  head  (in  a 
different  sort  of  marble)  really  belong  to  one  another. 
Ah !  the  more  closely  you  consider  the  fragments  of 
antiquity,  those  stray  letters  of  the  old  Greek  aes- 


316          THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC  PRIZEMEN 

thetic  alphabet,  the  less  positive  will  your  conclusions 
become,  because  less  conclusive  the  data  regarding 
artistic  origin  and  purpose.  Set  here  also,  however, 
to  the  end  that  in  a  congruous  atmosphere,  in  a  real 
perspective,  they  may  assume  their  full  moral  and 
aesthetic  expression,  whatever  of  like  spirit  you  may 
come  upon  in  Greek  or  any  other  work,  remembering 
that  in  England  also,  in  Oxford,  we  have  still,  for  any 
master  of  such  art  that  may  be  given  us,  subjects 
truly  "made  to  his  hand." 

As  with  these,  so  with  their  prototypes  at  Olympia, 
or  at  the  Isthmus,  above  all  perhaps  in  the  Diadu- 
ntenus  of  Polycleitus,  a  certain  melancholy  (a  pagan 
melancholy,  it  may  be  rightly  called,  even  when  we 
detect  it  in  our  English  youth)  is  blent  with  the  final 
impression  we  retain  of  them.  They  are  at  play 
indeed,  in  the  sun;  but  a  little  cloud  passes  over  it 
now  and  then;  and  just  because  of  them,  because 
they  are  there,  the  whole  aspect  of  the  place  is  chilled 
suddenly,  beyond  what  one  could  have  thought  possi- 
ble, into  what  seems,  nevertheless,  to  be  the  proper 
and  permanent  light  of  day.  For  though  they  pass 
on  from  age  to  age  the  type  of  what  is  pleasantest 
to  look  on,  which,  as  type,  is  indeed  eternal,  it  is,  of 
course,  but  for  an  hour  that  it  rests  with  any  one  of 
them  individually.  Assuredly  they  have  no  maladies 


THE  AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN          317 

of  soul  any  more  than  of  the  body  —  Animi  sensus 
non  expressit.  But  if  they  are  not  yet  thinking,  there 
is  the  capacity  of  thought,  of  painful  thought,  in 
them,  as  they  seem  to  be  aware  wistfully.  In  the 
Diadumenus  of  Polycleitus  this  expression  allies  it- 
self to  the  long-drawn  facial  type  of  his  preference, 
to  be  found  also  in  another  very  different  subject,  the 
ideal  of  which  he  fixed  in  Greek  sculpture  —  the 
would-be  virile  Amazon,  in  exquisite  pain,  alike  of 
body  and  soul  —  the  "Wounded  Amazon."  We  may 
be  reminded  that  in  the  first  mention  of  athletic 
contests  in  Greek  literature  —  in  the  twenty-third 
book  of  the  Iliad — they  form  part  of  the  funeral  rites 
of  the  hero  Patroclus. 

It  is  thus,  though  but  in  the  faintest  degree,  even 
with  the  veritable  prince  of  that  world  of  antique 
bronze  and  marble,  the  Discobolus  at  Rest  of  the 
Vatican,  which  might  well  be  set  where  Winckelmann 
set  the  Adorante,  representing  as  it  probably  does, 
the  original  of  Alcamenes,  in  whom,  a  generation 
after  Pheidias,  an  earlier  and  more  earnest  spirit  still 
survived.  Although  the  crisply  trimmed  head  may 
seem  a  little  too  small  to  our,  perhaps  not  quite 
rightful,  eyes,  we  might  accept  him  for  that  canon, 
or  measure,  of  the  perfect  human  form,  which  Poly- 
cleitus had  proposed.  He  is  neither  the  victor  at 


318  THE  AGE   OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN 

rest,  as  with  Polycleitus,  nor  the  combatant  already 
in  motion,  as  with  Myron;  but,  as  if  stepping  back- 
ward from  Myron's  precise  point  of  interest,  and  with 
the  heavy  discus  still  in  the  left  hand,  he  is  preparing 
for  his  venture,  taking  stand  carefully  on  the  right 
foot.  Eye  and  mind  concentre,  loyally,  entirely, 
upon  the  business  in  hand.  The  very  finger  is  reck- 
oning while  he  watches,  intent  upon  the  cast  of  an- 
other, as  the  metal  glides  to  the  goal.  Take  him,  to 
lead  you  forth  quite  out  of  the  narrow  limits  of  the 
Greek  world.  You  have  pure  humanity  there,  with 
a  glowing,  yet  restrained  joy  and  delight  in  itself, 
but  without  vanity;  and  it  is  pure.  There  is  nothing 
certainly  supersensual  in  that  fair,  round  head,  any 
more  than  in  the  long,  agile  limbs;  but  also  no  im- 
pediment, natural  or  acquired.  To  have  achieved 
just  that,  was  the  Greek's  truest  claim  for  furtherance 
in  the  main  line  of  human  development.  He  had 
been  faithful,  we  cannot  help  saying,  as  we  pass  from 
that  youthful  company,  in  what  comparatively  is 
perhaps  little  —  in  the  culture,  the  administration, 
of  the  visible  world;  and  he  merited,  so  we  might 
go  on  to  say  —  he  merited  Revelation,  something 
which  should  solace  his  heart  in  the  inevitable  fading 
of  that.  We  are  reminded  of  those  strange  pro- 
phetic words  of  the  Wisdom,  the  Logos,  by  whom 


THE   AGE  OF  ATHLETIC   PRIZEMEN          319 

God  made  the  world,  in  one  of  the  sapiential,  half- 
Platonic  books  of  the  Hebrew  Scriptures :  —  "I  was 
by  him,  as  one  brought  up  with  him;  rejoicing  in 
the  habitable  parts  of  the  earth.  My  delights  were 
with  the  sons  of  men." 


THE   END 


THE   WORKS   OF   WALTER   PATER. 


PLATO   AND   PLATONISM. 

A   Series   of   Lectures. 

By  WALTER  PATER,  M.A. 
Third  Edition.    Globe  8vo.    Cloth,  $1.75. 


"  Many  will  read  the  book  because  Pater  wrote  it,  and  all  will 
have  some  good  from  it,  though  in  various  degrees ;  in  any  case, 
valuable  service  has  been  done  for  the  study  of  Plato,  and  a  valuable 
contribution  to  higher  English  prose.  ...  As  might  be  expected 
from  the  nature  of  Pater's  genius,  he  has  much  to  say  on  the  ^Es- 
thetics of  Plato  —  in  fact,  it  is  this  side  of  Plato,  as  above  remarked, 
that  offers  most  attraction  to  the  author.  In  Plato  he  finds  the  first 
philosopher  who  speculated  at  all  about  the  beautiful.  So  it  is  as 
an  art  lover  that  Pater  comes  to  Plato,  and  it  is  this  side  of  Plato's 
philosophy  that  receives  most  attention  at  the  hands  of  the  author. 
One  is  very  glad,  too,  to  have  so  masterly  and  sympathetic  a  spirit 
to  interpret  for  us  this  aspect  of  Platonism.  Jowett's  Introductions 
have  done  much,  but  we  have  no  volume  which  sets  forth  in  such 
clear  and  charming  way  the  literary,  aesthetic,  and  political  features 
of  this  philosophy."  —  Philosophical  Review. 


THE  MAOMILLAN  COMPANY,  Publishers,  New  York, 
i 


THE  WORKS  OF  WALTER   PATER. 


IMAGINARY  PORTRAITS. 

By  WALTER  PATER, 

FELLOW  OF  BRASENOSE  COLLEGE. 

Globe  8vo.    $1.50. 


"'  The  subtle  appreciation,  and  the  infinite  number  of  small  touches 
in  the  rendering  of  what  he  sees,  which  lie  at  the  heart  of  Mr. 
Pater's  literary  individuality,  and  give  to  his  style  its  extraordinary 
distinction,  lift  the  work  out  of  the  range  of  the  common,  and  set  it 
apart  as  unique  with  his  other  work,  to  the  refined  thoughtfulness  of 
which  we  have  hitherto  endeavored  to  do  some  justice."  —  Nation. 

"The  portraits  are  of  incomparable  perfection  and  beauty,  and 
are  educational  of  art  and  literary  taste."  —  Boston  Globe. 

"Whatever  his  subject-matter,  the  mere  flow  of  his  words  and 
sentences  has  the  enchanting  power  of  a  richly  musical  voice.  His 
command  of  the  qualities  of  grace  and  beauty  in  English  prose 
seems  to  us  seldom  to  have  been  equalled.  .  .  .  We  do  not  know 
of  another  fiction-writer  of  to-day  —  certainly  not  more  than  one  — 
who  would  do  such  purely  artistic  work  in  the  line  of  drawing  char- 
acters of  a  bygone  day." —  Critic. 

"Mr.  Walter  Pater  is  one  of  the  few  —  the  very  few  —  living  Eng- 
lish authors  who  have  never  published  anything  which  the  most 
fastidious  lover  of  pure  literature  cannot  read  with  pleasure  as  well 
as  profit,  and  to  which  he  is  not  certain  to  return  in  his  leisure  hours 
for  a  renewal  of  that  pleasure."  —  Mail  and  Express. 

"  It  is  impossible  to  make  adequate  extracts  from  such  a  book  as 
this.  It  is  full  of  the  finest  insights  into  life  and  art;  of  pictures  and 
suggestions ;  of  delicate  fancies  so  harmoniously  strung  that  the 
reading  is  like  the  passing  of  exquisite  music."  —  Boston  Traveller. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,  Publishers,  New  York. 

2 


THE   WORKS  OF  WALTER  PATER. 


THE  RENAISSANCE: 

Studies  in   Art  and   Poetry 

By  WALTER  PATER, 

FELLOW  OF  BRASENOSE  COLLEGE. 

Third  Edition.     Revised  and  Enlarged.    Globe  Svo.    $2.00. 


This  edition  has  been  carefully  revised  and,  to  some 
extent,  enlarged.  The  'Conclusion,1  which  was  omitted 
from  the  second  edition,  has  now  been  replaced  with  some 
slight  changes  which  bring  it  closer  to  the  author's  original 
meaning. 

"The  appearance  of  Mr.  Pater's  Essays  —  one  of  the  most  char- 
acteristic and  epoch-marking  books  of  our  day  —  in  a  third  edition 
is  a  welcome  proof  of  the  power  of  good  literature  to  win  its  way  in 
the  long  run,  however  remote  and  unfamiliar  its  form  may  be.  The 
text  has  been  touched  here  and  there  in  the  successive  remaniments 
which  it  has  undergone,  but  Mr.  Pater  has  been  wisely  careful  to 
lay  no  irreverent  hands  upon  cadences  which  linger  in  the  memo- 
ries of  many  readers  of  that  beloved  first  edition,  with  its  deep- 
ribbed,  hand-made  paper,  and  dark  green  cover.  Such  a  reader 
will  turn  to  the  well-known  passage  on  Lionardo's  Mono.  Lisa,  and 
will  come  under  the  old  charm  with  great  satisfaction.  It  is  of 
course  possible  to  have  different  opinions  about  a  style  so  studied, 
so  subtle,  and  so  minutely  wrought,  but  no  one  who  can  taste  books 
at  all  will  fail  to  feel  its  charm,  while  no  student  of  art  can  turn  over 
the  essays  on  Botticelli  and  The  School  of  Giorgione  and  Winckel- 
mann  without  seeing  how  deep  a  mark  Mr.  Pater  has  left  on  the 
best  criticism  of  our  day."  —  Manchester  Guardian. 

"  Among  English  authors  who  have  identified  themselves  with  the 
modern  art  movement  in  England,  no  one  holds  a  higher  position 
than  Mr.  Walter  Pater,  a  thorough  scholar,  a  man  of  strong  artistic 
feeling,  trained  in  literature  as  well  as  in  art  history.  Mr.  Pater  has 
brought  to  the  work  of  expressing  some  modern  English  ideas  in 
art  all  the  resources  of  a  gifted  and  accomplished  writer.  In  his 
delightful  volume  on  the  Renaissance  he  discloses  many  of  those 
qualities  which  characterize  what  has  been  called  modern  pre- 
Raphaelite  art."  —  Christian  Union. 


THE  MAOMILLAN  COMPANY,  Publishers,  New  York. 
3 


THE   WORKS   OF   WALTER   PATER. 


APPRECIATIONS, 

With  an   iCssav   on   Style. 

By  WALTER  PATER,  M.A. 

Globe  8vo.   Cloth.   $1.75. 

"  Will  charm  by  the  beauty  of  its  literary  workmanship,  as  well  as 
by  the  depth  and  fineness  of  its  criticism."  —  Boston  Saturday  Even- 
ing Gazette. 

"  They  will  be  read  with  interest  as  a  finished  expression  of  the 
opinions  of  one  of  the  most  earnest  and  widely  cultured  of  living 
English  critics." — St.  James'  Gazette. 

"  He  has  something  to  say;  he  says  it  in  English  undefiled,  and 
his  sentences  caress  the  ear,  and  linger  like  music  in  the  memory. 
But,  in  addition  to  these,  he  has  another  gift,  to  the  last  degree  indi- 
vidual—  he  has  the  power  of  illumination.  In  a  single  phrase  he 
flashes  a  new  light  on  the  subject  he  is  discussing,  and  yet  vhat 
he  says  is  so  inevitable  that  we  all  wonder  we  have  not  thought  of 
it  before."  —  Boston  Herald. 


MARIUS,  THE  EPICUREAN : 

His  Sensations   and   Ideas. 

By  WALTER  PATER,  M.A. 
Second  Edition.    Globe  8vo.    $2.25. 

"  A  style  of  perfectly  finished  beauty,  full  of  an  exquisite  restraint, 
and,  after  all,  only  the  fitting  and  adequate  expression  of  the  exact- 
est  thinking."  —  Athen<zum. 

"  Any  one  who  cares  to  think  on  counsels  of  perfection  for  man's 
life  will  find  profound  and  original  thought  about  the  ideal  elements 
still  at  hand  in  modern  days  for  use,  and  many  wise  reflections, 
sown  along  these  pages.  It  is  a  rare  work  and  not  carelessly  to  be 
read.  Some  exquisiteness  of  taste,  some  delight  in  scholarship, 
some  knowledge  of  what  is  best  worth  knowing  in  the  historic  ex- 
pressions of  man's  aspiration,  and,  above  all,  that '  inward  tacitness 
of  mind'  the  reader  must  bring  to  its  perusal."  —  Nation. 

"  The  polish  of  the  style,  the  depth  and  refinement  of  the  thought, 
the  picturesque  descriptions,  and  the  lofty  sentiment  of  the  book  as 
a  whole,  together  with  the  beautiful  gravity  and  impressiveness  that 
mark  it  generally,  make  it  a  work  far  out  of  the  ordinary  current  of 
fiction."  —  Boston  Saturday  Evening  Gazette. 


THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY,  Publishers,  New  York. 
4 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


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